*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

I will reach out dellsupport on monday and complain following:

- my alienware head on the Display has a cut/brick in one eye which Looks weird
- my softtouch finish got a "dot" which is weird
- they should send a technician who fixes my headpipe or
- should givme some refund if theyre ok when i repaste that as self Service (or they send me a new headspreader)


Why not sending back: time wasting, also Keyboard, trackpad and Display are superb. Also i pretty like this machine

What i´ve learned: nobody is perefect it does not matter if it´s a 400 Bugs or 2400 Bugs machine, happy about to not yet sold my "backup System" at Arrival of the AW15R3 and i am happy about communities like this which Shows up that I´m not allone

Regards
aVa

 

About the colors in the TN panel:

NVIDIA Control Panel > Display > Adjust desktop colour settings > Digital vibrance between 55-60% starts to show great results also with reds

 

And a simple repaste will fix it? Maybe take a look http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ven-core-temps-due-to-uneven-heatsink.797477/

 

Yeah, could be that too, a repaste might not necessarily fix the problem. Warped heatsinks, problems with the mounting systems, poor pasting - they're all things that can go wrong.

 

You suggest a repaste either by Dell's famous home tech or do it by yourself. Only a return is acceptable... Dell will never ever fix this problems if people don't take the step and return their faulty machines and complaining hard. If only a repaste was enough, that's another matter.

 

Yeah sadly the parts they need to fix my machine (Wireless card and antenna's are backordered for a month.) they are looking to see if they can allow me to do a full return. I think I will wait out until Kaby Lake comes out and hopefully they have everything fixed.

 

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but if I owned the laptop & wanted to keep it apart from the crappy CPU temperatures then I would have a go at repasting the CPU if it didn't disadvantage me with a future potential return to Dell.

 

Guys, some news here! apparently, the 20°C+ differential between cores appeared ONLY after I updated the BIOS! I was suspicious, I flashed back to the original one and guess what? Now max differential is nearby 10°C! The BIOS update definitely screws everything up! I'm still hesitating now..i'm wondering if the KabyLake versions will be really better and fixed.
84°C max after an hour of the witcher with High settings, without a repaste, it seems good right?

 

I am downloading witcher 3 now, i have the 6700hq right now without a repaste and a -150mv im getting 55ish on the cpu playing wow and 65 on infinite warfare. This is my fourth pc though. core 0 is off by 5-10 but the rest of the cores are the same, I wont complain due to core 0 not going that high.

 

Core 0 alone high isn't bad, most single thread programs will by default run on Core 0 keeping it warm, while the other cores are more or less idle between multi-threaded operations.

It sounds like you finally got a "good" one

 

I think so, even without a repaste! I dont want to open it up and mess something good up lol. Its the TN panel model so once I get the calibration done it will be perfect. And the fans stay low rpm gaming, the last one went full speed as soon as I started playing.

 

A repaste with a good thermal grease isn't good enough. You need Liquid metal and fix up the flawed 3 screw cpu heatsink like @iunlock did.

Kaby lake can't fix a screwed heatsink design or a lousy thermal paste.

 

Unless they going to use a new motherboard for the Kaby lake builds with 4 screws.

 

theyre not the only manufacturer with this heat sink, so doubt theyll change it for kaby lake

 

Well what you say will be the case if ALL of the units are affected with poor manufacturing tolerances (or straight up misdesign) of the heatsink & mountings, but if they're not all affected then it's worth the effort of a repaste to save some hassle of returning it. Myself I would still do a repaste to see if I could get lucky!

 

Yep sure, so the repasting may fix the issue for now, but i strongly preffer to ask AW if they give you additional + 4 years warranty (on their cost) about to prevent further issues (cause no idea how long this will work and/or if the CPU still was too much in trouble < not in this anymore, but in the past hotspots could damage CPU or GPU´s)

Question: does anyone know if the AW 17 is also affected by this issue (3 screws uneven heatsink) ?

regards
aVa

 

Lol I know thanks, what I hope is that maybe they don't want to recall all their already "made/sold" units so they won't change a thing now, BUT with all the complaints and returns, maybe they wait for the new model to take the issue into account. Of course KabyLake won't change a messed up design -_-

I guess they lost a lot of money with all the returns and replacements, hope they'll fix things for their own greed..

 

Anyone tried the bios 1.0.8 ? On reddit they say that it's increasing the temps.

 

Maybe because of this below? Shouldn't Aw fix the high temp and nor increase it? Time for some bench test?

 

Well if there's more performance then it will heat more unless they solved some software optimisation bugs .

But how ? Higher turbo clock ? i doubt it..., Higher GPU frequency ? Seems more likely but needs testing.

EDIT :
1.0.8

Repasted and undervolted -147mV

3DMARK firestrike score 13174 CPU temps : 69 68 68 65 (I solved the huge differential on my unit). I have the same temps (maybe very slightly lower should test more in-game) and an extra 150-178 points approx on 3D mark.

The best thing is that the mini freezes I had when pressing the start button disappeared that's great.

Seems like a decent bios upgrade IMO but should test more.

 

How'd you solve your differential? Just the repaste, or bent the third heatsink retention arm too?

 

haha guess you guys bought all the 1080s in the usa, theyre not offering it now

 

@wickette - Wondering about the specifics of that fix too, most people that repaste still end up with the Core differential, only @iunlock before this has succeeded.

@ garcha92 tried the arm bending on 2 units, and was unable to cure the differential:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-uneven-heatsink.797477/page-54#post-10398490

 

Hmm. In the US at Dell.com when I ordered Nov 17th, there was a special 4 year extension for $240. It's now $347. I guess I got lucky.

Been playing games all week now with zero issues. no overheating, no shutdowns, and I am loving the laptop, except the freaking off center keyboard due to those function keys on the left. I keep hitting the caps key when I type an A. Its going to take time i guess.
I bought this to replace my Lenovo, which is now breaking apart where the screen attaches to the base. Cheap plastic.

This laptop feels much sturdier, and with the 4 year warranty extension making it 5 years of support, this should last me a while. In fact, that's why i went for the 1070 with G-Sync over the 1060, as I am waiting for the price of VR to come down so I can use this as my virtual reality platform going forward, and the 1070 is 40% faster than the 1060. Worth the upgrade price. Looking at all the other players out there now, this is the most elegant design, and with THREE M.2 NVMe SSD expansion slots, PLUS the 2.5 inch SSD or HDD space, this laptop is very expandable from a storage standpoint.

AND, when the 1070 is old, I can just use the external GPU connector to keep it going in the future. I went to B&H photo in Manhattan the other day to get some hands on the other laptops in this caliber, and I like feel of the Alienware the best hands down. I think the way they designed the access to the internals is much cleaner than everyone else.

I have been surfing the web now unplugged for ABOUT AN HOUR, (DAMN CAPS LOCK PLACEMENT!) about an hour now, and the battery still shows 3 hours and 57 min left. The 99W/hr battery is worth it, although it does make it heavier.

Next step is to plug in the 1TB 960 PRO M.2, when it arrives. I can't wait to see how fast she boots after that. Backing up is going to be a breeze to the internal 2TB 2.5 inch 850 EVO (I put the 1TB HGST HDD it came with in an external enclosure USB for long term backups)

 

Anyone getting weird bios problems? I'll get a random crash and I hold the power button down to turn it off. When I go to turn it on it flashes the alienware logo and the power button blue once and the power button red twice and it repeats for about ten minutes and final boots and has the bios reset.

 

Hi all,

im new in the forum and ordered a alienware r15 with i7-6700HQ and 1070, there're still issues with the cpu temperatures and the thermal compound with latest batches? mine will come in 2 weeks in my country is in pre-production.

I hope its fixed by then.

 

Dunno, I just used a big fat screwdriver, probably ended up bending the retention arm with it when I tightened the screw .

 

Guys, though I have recently ordered an AW13 R3, I am getting a very good deal on AW15 R3. Now I am aware of the on-going issues with the AW15 R3 but my query is more around the cooling design differences between the AW15 & the AW13.

Though the design seems to be identical, would the AW13 have smaller heat sinks and heat pipes than the AW15 or would they be the same size? Would appreciate a prompt response as I have the offer open on the AW15 for just half an hour more.

 

If heatsinks smaller or not should not matter, as if the preassure is given and they´re even on the CPU and GPU everything should work as expected.

I was in call with dell today and send my Alienware 15R3 back and receive my money back (within my 2 weeks so no issue) and now i´m pretty unhappy as that´s the machine i really wanted and i cannot see any other "do want" DTR notebook in 15inch form faktor out there (6820HK/1070/ lot of SSD slots and UHD display and yeah blingbling stuff).

Awaiting a refresh or new charge and holding different threads on screen, hopefully i will receive a new lapotp. Pressing thumbs for the peopole out there for a solution for their systems.

What a sh** .. first MSI (no pascal update on GT72 which was reason to sell and go after 2month´s research with AW and then this **** issue).

Greetings
aVa

 

That does suck! If you want a good high performance 15" laptop I think there's a Clevo laptop called the "Tornado" something-or-other, I believe desktop CPU & all sorts of config options. (Would be a start to the googling of your new laptop, I'm a bit vague on this as don't know all the laptops, but might head you in the right direction).

 

Hey guys,

I had initially ordered an Alienware 13 R3 yesterday but seeing a great price (basically almost the same as what I paid for the 13), I couldn't resist but change my order to an Alienware 15 R3 with the following specs:
i7 6820HK, 32gb RAM, 256gb SSD + 1TB 7200rpm HDD, UHD, NVidia 1070, 3 years premium warranty, Killer 1535, Windows 10 HE.

Also got the 17" Vindicator backpack.

Hoping my unit will no suffer the same fate and Dell/Alienware have actually stepped up their QC.

Btw, can I return the laptop from a different country/region than from where the order had been placed and delivered to? (hope I never need to but still just checking my options)

 

This happened to me once when i held the power button down to start it. but it only did it for about a minute until i pulled out the charger plug, not sure what it was but has not done it since. I was a bit panicked at that moment though

 

Yea last nights one was brutal I had to take the cover off and unplug the battery before it stopped doing it. Hopefully it gets address or something on why it does it.

 

@iunlock have you worked with the 13?

Should we be expecting it to run really hot?
What about performance with a 6700/1060? Should be ok/no bottleneck?

Thinking I'll have to lower the res in game to 1080 yes? With the oled model

 

Anyone have an issue where when they shutdown windows on battery sometimes the Alienware lights never go off? Screen shuts down and everything but I have to press and hold the power button to get it to fully shutdown sometimes. Never seems to happen when plugged in though.

 

So I got approval for the return. Should I just go ahead and do it and pickup something cheap to hold me off until Kaby Lake?


Actually they are willing to give me $200 gift card to wait for the parts to come in. Should I go ahead and do that?

 

I am having wireless disconnection issues with the 1435 in the same way I had with the 1535. I already uninstalled all the Killer software. Any suggestions?

 

What I did before even testing the wireless card (not my first killer card...) was to install ONLY the killer drivers and remove the software (killer software suite I think) this thing is a bug magnet.

 

Not a Clevo, but MSI barbones http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nado-f5-owners-and-discussions-lounge.797128/
Socket hardware all the way.

 

Ugh so mad

So I'm trying to order a 15r3 through my company using education moneys. But I have to go through my HR person and I can't order directly.

Original order placed 11/7. I got my backpack but 3 weeks no laptop.

I started asking and after 2 days of waiting to hear back from my hr person I finally heard today "not sure what happened to order but I was on with dell all morning. They lost the order but it's now in process"

Ok great. Here's the kicker. Originally I wanted the 120 hz 1070 unit. But the day they did the OG order the 1070 wasn't avail so it got put in as a 1060.

Ok fine. I asked today after hearing the order was lost if I can change back to the 1070.

"Just received word est delivery is 12/12. Sorry we cannot change the order"

Is they any hope?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Anyone else having large temp differences under load?

My config is 6700HQ, 1060, 16GB 2400Mhz, 99Whr battery, 1080p screen

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ven-core-temps-due-to-uneven-heatsink.797477/

 

The soft shutdown can cause that, try disabling Hiberation - Fast Startup and Soft Shutdown depend on it and are disabled when you disable Hibernation:

Run As Administrator a cmd window:

powercfg /h off

Then reboot, and you can test shutdown.

Note that you also just saved 1x size of RAM space on your C drive - 32GB for me, the invisible file hiberfil.sys is removed at reboot after disabling Hibernation.

I also disable the pagefile on systems with more than 8GB of memory, this also releases up to 1x size of memory allocated in the invisible file pagefile.sys, saving up to another 32GB of space on C: partition for me, for a total of 64GB saved out of 256GB RAID0 for me by disabling services I don't need.

I also don't use sleep mode, as Nvidia / Microsoft are constantly mucking that up - it'll work for a while, then after an update it won't. I disable the Sleep button and Power button, I have them do nothing. Power reset still works if you hold down the Power button, FYI.

Please come back and let us know how it works out for you

 

So what does it do when you close lid? Shut down?


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Choose What Happens When You Close Lid In Windows 10
http://windowsclan.com/choose-what-happens-when-you-close-lid-in-windows-10/

As I said, I set mine to Do Nothing.

 

Ah derp. So you manually shut it down? My surface is always eating battery when it's supposed to be sleeping lol


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I wouldn't be closing my lid except "after" I shut down, yes

I find it annoying to set an action on my lid close, as I often move my laptop and found that near the edge of "action" I would often close it too far to carry it and it would sleep / hibernate / shutdown, and that was an undesireable behavior.

I can count on myself to know when I am done and can select "shutdown" or "Lock" as needed to walk away from my laptop.

It boots way fast, and a fresh boot up is always more reliable for me than coming out of sleep or hibernation.

 

Cheers Papusan, that's the one! @avalance this could be the answer to your laptop woes, have a look in the owners lounge that Papusan linked, it's not all fairy tales in there with some people reporting some issues, but I guess there's always someone that has bad luck with the very slight lottery of purchasing laptops/PC Hardware.

 

You're welcome Most of the owners are happy campers in that thread. In contrast to the tripod heatsink and uneven temperature between warmest vs. coldest core mess. A nice machine.

 

Guys, does any body know about this?

Also, I was planning to order some thermal pads and was wondering which ones should I go for? Any suggestions?
Also, what are the most common places where putting some thermal pads can aid in better thermal efficiency of a laptop?