*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

Ah that's good. Any ETA?

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Next week.

 

Nice. Hopefully early next week.

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I don't need proof because I know you're saying the truth, all I'm saying is that the AW tech support are wrong IMO.

 

I hardly believe alienware would let the cpu runs >100°C that's just stupid, if they're saying that the readings might be incorrect than it might be true think about it ...

You have a shared heatsink where the GPU sits at 63°C in gaming and the CPU 99°C !

If the readings are incorrect let's say reading = realTemps + error_offset, repasting and undervolting would still reduce the realTemps and thus the reading so it fits.

Don't rule it out.

 

I guess in a "BGA-killer" world software problems are always replicable and affect 100% of the systems...
Nonetheless, it doesn't feel like a simple sensor malfunction, and I don't really trust what some Dell "tech support" said, but I guess we will wait and see.

 

Well, I tried to bend the bezel a bit when I pulled it loose which improved the situation but still I am probably going to require Dell to fix this, a laptop in this pricerange shouldn't require the user to have to repair the thing upon delivery.

 

On the one hand I agree, on the other hand I had a senior support member from Dell Australia tell me that there was nothing wrong with my laptop, despite him observing temps of 99C and it throttling back to 2.6GHz (unable to maintain any Turbo Boost) in just a CPU test (OCCT). I suspect that was just him pushing back and not wanting to have to organise a replacement, but still, leaves quite a bitter taste in my mouth.

Another option is just that the scale is wrong. Ie, reading = realTemps * multiplier (eg, 1.5) so where it's showing 99C it's actually 66C. Seems unlikely, I admit, but possible, and it would also make the repasted CPU temps seem more plausible (ie, reading 80C is actually 53C; ie, only 11C difference from the repaste).

Well, in this case it's two product reps; Umar and the rep at PAX Australia. But I agree, let's wait and see.

 

Well yeah, I mean my 6700HQ prior to repaste did hit 93°C illogically to be honest when running a 3DMARK firestrike bench...and the GPU was 30 freaking degrees less !

Those high spikes affect ALL AW pascal owner I've seen on reddit/nbr.

Of course you will have people with defective units and/or botched thermal paste job who will have thermal shutdowns in addition.

I eradicated the high temps thankfully : UV+repaste made the alienware 15R3 a decent laptop, probably one of the best bga 15" 1070 out there but AFTER repasting.

Now if a bios update comes out and corrects the reading and/or improve the fan tables and fan reactions, I wouldn't mind ^^. but the readings might be 7-10°C above at max IMO.

 

Try Cinbench R11.5 and R15 and compare scores and temperature with other brands similar models and hardware. There shouldn't be a big difference in temp. Then you have a pointing stick if the temperature is very very wrong.

 

For me I tried fire strike and the difference with other brands (clevo P650RS-G for instance) was very different. it was like 69°C max (GT62VR) and 93°C max.

 

If the temp reading of processor is wrong as Dell said... Test only processor benchmarks as suggested, because cpu heatsink is shared with the graphics and will not give correct temp results for Cpu with bench of both.

 

You'll have a pointing stick that the temperature is wrong, but it doesn't tell you why it's wrong; could either be bad cooling system (ie, not enough contact between CPU and heatpipe), or incorrect BIOS. In my case it's very wrong (99C @ 2.6GHz with OCCT), but I'll have to wait for the BIOS to find out if that's why.

 

What kind of speeds do you get for the Toshiba SSDs? According to this article, the previous XG3 version (the ones in the new AWs are supposed to be XG4) are supposed to have much better performance than what I am getting (although the article is a bit hard to understand with regards to different version of the drive)

http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/ngff-m-2/toshiba-xg3-m-2-nvme-ssd-review-1tb/

I get about 1700Mbit/s read and 1000Mbit/s write (SEQ Q32 T1)

Edit:
Actually, according to this, the speeds I'm getting is actually better than promised ones by Toshiba:

https://toshiba.semicon-storage.com/info/docget.jsp?did=55015

 

If several test and then compare the results. You could possibly rule out wrong temp reading from firmware if some of the machines get very decent max temp with stock Dell paste.

 

Well now it's too late I repasted the laptop ^^. I would need to buy 1 gallon of extra grey toothpaste if I want to go back to stock configuration.

3D mark physics can be counted as a nearly CPU only stress test

 

Yeah, I get about the same. Would've been nice if they used a 950 Pro, but I can't exactly blame them for not wanting that expense. Still, it's good enough for a boot disk I find.

 

Would be interesting if anyone had some comments about the gains of upgrading to a Samsung 960 Pro 1TB drive instead? Benchmark speeds are of course better but what would be real life improvements for someone not working with heavy video production, datamining etc?

 

So, what are good options for monitoring fan speeds on the AW15? Can't seem to find that Alienware themselves have such a tool surprisingly enough and HWInfo doesn't seem to find the fans (maybe an update would be required)?

 

Hi guys, i posted this on another thread, but can't seem to have a satisfying answer, maybe you could help:

 

So they ended up putting together a replacement machine with just the 6700Hq (I had the 6820HK). To compensate for the downgrade in CPU they bumped me from 8GB of ram to 32GB and threw in a 512GB M.2 SSD. Good Deal?

 

yes i totally agree please keep us informed what they say ,

 

tobii eye tracking these settings have been disabled in your active windows power plan

if i set defaults in tobii it all works for a few min then i open it again and get this.

cant find anything in my power plan that would take it over.

 

Kaby Lake may be released in December/January; but AW and some other manufacturers will not have them in their systems till late Summer 2017

Probably not; unless you are going to use liquid metal repaste; I wouldn't even consider overclocking the CPU. At 1080p, you won't have any trouble with any modern game for a few years

 

You don't need 32Gb, go for 16 + 1Tb SSD ^^.

But yeah good deal, keep in mind that the 6820HK heats more and you don't need it, only in very very rare cases you will be cpu limited.

 

I'm considering returning my FHD IPS because of backlight bleed. I also dont like that IPS panel black levels.

What about the FHD 120Hz TN+WVA Anti-Glare 400-nits NVIDIA G-SYNC?

Is it a good panel? Any backlight bleed, banding or other problems?

 

Hello all again,

So I received my replacement laptop and its working! lol.. I definitely received a dud on my last one. I do have a slight bit of bleeding on my 4K screen but I will live with it. My cpu is definitely throttling at times it gets to about 96c on 2 of the cores. I will repaste soon.

They bumped me up to 16GB of ram and added the 128GB M.2 sata SSD for the trouble I guess. I have no use for the SSD as I already took it out and did a RAID0 with 2x 512GB Intel 600p drives and I am getting about 2600MB/sec / 1700MB/sec on it now which feels nice.

 

I'm not sure I would classify 96c and throttling to be "working". Hopefully a repaste helps...

 

Should have my Alienware 15 R3 this week! Excited! I was able to get the laptop on sale this past week with Dell's early Black Friday sale and managed to get it for just under $1600. Got the 6700HQ, 1060, 16GB Ram, 256GB SSD, 1TB, 99W battery, FHD. Thinking about getting a 1TB m2 Sata SSD to for about $250 just to have some more space with speed without having to spend a lot for the new NVMe drives.

 

Compared to my first one I got that wouldnt even post, I consider this to be working
Definitely will repaste though but so far it works technically.

 

I received my replacement unit and although it does not shut down,the max temps I got was 93 on stress test but when I undervolt using XTU, my temps were between high 70s to mid to high 80s playing Witcher 3. Seems improved but I need to undervolt my CPU. I'll wait for the New Bios update and see if it is really the temp sensor issue. <br /><br />I do get 90 temp spike but it's not consistent. In fact, while I average between high 70s to mid to high 80s, I only get 90 temp spike just for one second and it gets back to the temp average then after 10 mins, it goes to 90s just for one second again then goes back to mid 80s<br /><br /><br />I really wanted someone to repaste my replacement unit. The other dell tech that tried to do on my old unit screwed up the hinges on my monitor. Any one in the Los Angeles area that can hook me up?<br /><br />Sent from my E6853 using Tapatalk

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HIDevolution is located in LA; and they do Liquid Metal on systems they sell. Don't know if they will do it for something they did not sell; but doesn't hurt to ask

"HIDevolution (Evolution Computers inc) is located in Orange County about 45 minutes from LAX airport and downtown Los Angeles. We welcome local pick ups of orders and can arrange product demonstrations by appointment."

511 South Harbor Blvd, Building A
La Habra, California 90631 USA
U.S. Toll Free - 888-666-3418

Also I think Mobius1 here does repasteing; have no idea where he is located

 

I'll check them out.

Mobius is from NY but I'll consider if there are no options in here.

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No backlight bleed, no banding, no issues at all. I would consider this to be an extremely good panel. Brightness is fantastic, the colours (at least to me) are very good. Haven't really looked too closely at black levels, but so far at least they haven't bothered me. IMO it's definitely the panel to go for.

Consider an Intel 600P. It isn't much more expensive than SATA ($350 at Newegg for 1TB), yet gives you over 3x the read speed.

The 90 spike is probably when it's trying to Turbo Boost before it throttles back to 2.6-2.8GHz.

From the sounds of it a replacement laptop doesn't seem like it'll fix the issues, so I think I'm just going to wait for the BIOS and if that doesn't fix the thermal situation with my laptop then I'll just return it for a refund.

 

Does the default installation of Windows shipped with this compute have some display profiles or similar installed? Reason for asking is that I notice that after a clean reinstallation the screen doesn't have the same colors as before, they are less intense now. Now, that isn't all bad of course, but just wondering if there were some display profiles activated or something like that.

 

Can you post the panel model?

 

AU Optonics AUO51ED, B156HTN.

 

Hey whats some temps for the 6700hq idle and gaming? I have the 6820hk and I idle at 45 and gaming wow at 65 and battlefield at 75. Thats with a repaste.

 

im idle

 

Is that after a repaste? because i'd love to get that with stock when i receive it..

 

Since Optimus and GSync doesnt like each other, is it still possible to switch between Intel GPU and NVidia GPU manually with a GSync modell? Does it require a restart?

 

No, it's not possible. With a G-Sync motherboard the display is connected directly to the dedicated GPU, which means there's no way to use the Intel GPU.

 

naw im all stock

2 hr 15 min running. i cant complain , i think the temps in hwinfo are more accurate tho then they are in occt

 

wait we dont get the sharp panel in the UHD model?
anybody have any color gamut results for this au panel?

 

This is the 1080p 120Hz panel (as mentioned).

 

my bad.

does anyone know the uhd panel?

not sure if they used 1 or 2
1. LQ156D1JW02 - brightness 350 cd/m2 100% adobe
2. LQ156D1JW04 - brightness 330 cd/m2 72% NTSC


and would 2 be okay for editing for prints?

 

I believe the UHD panel has severe lightbleed... the 120Hz is said to have flickerng issues and the standard one also suffers a bit of lightbleed.. Could any of the owners confirm?

 

The flickering for the 120Hz panel was for G-Sync only, and has been fixed with the latest drivers.

 

Try this buddy:

http://downloads.dell.com/published/pages/alienware-15-laptop.html

 

Hi there. I have the 4K panel with an i7 6700HQ and have some lighht bleed that is bad enough for me to initiate a return. I am awaiting Dell to send it out. They have told me they have switched panel manufactuer. Mine is a Sharp. I see that some on here have LG with light bleed. No idea what I am getting yet. I will keep you guys posted...

This being said, the 4K panel is nice. I like the black levels, but the colours do not "pop" like an OLED screen. I have not tried to calibrate (no do I think I could if I tried).