*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

Hello all! There is a new 1.0.8 bios out that just was released last night. I am going to try it once I get home, just wanted to let people know!

 

Thanks, will give this a try and let you all know.

 

15r3 (1060) arriving tomorrow, just doing a full benching and test on gs63vr which is almost the exact same spec as I'm getting in The AW, be interesting so see how they face off and who's the winner.

 

well mine will go back...97°C playing the witcher 3..by the way, it's a real struggle to write a message here with the AW, writing a post in the box stutters like hell and I have the latest graphics driver, same thing while scrolling, with the latest trackpad driver etc..this PC is awesome and terrible at the same time, what a shame, I don't want any other PC, can't they just give a fck about their product and make it work normally??? Man..how much money are they losing over that ****..

 

Is that the cpu temp?

have you tried undervolting it at all? I Know it's not what we should need to do but it does give a big drop in temps for most people.

 

97 degC at stock settings means there's a problem with the laptop that needs fixing, undervolting is just treating the symptoms & not the problem, an undervolt won't solve it.

 

exactly, thermal paste must be dry toothpaste and heatsink must be flawed, returning..seriously am I the only one who struggles to write a post here with the AW? letters takes forever to appear wtf -_- stuttering like a 1998 PC, man..

 

definitely agree that's piss poor

I do have that issue as well some times with my main rig and my HTPC so that may be the site or browser issue? are you getting the same issue if you try on a different forum ? i only ask because I've had the same issue with a known "good pc"

but yeah 95c stock ...... hmmm they seem like a total lottery these things, I wonder who's building these things.

are the core differences huge as well.... as if i need ask.

 

@Robbo99999 @spiralzz

What's an acceptable stock temp on benchmark then? 85~?

 

Yeah border line, but my example;

I've just been playing doom on my GS63vr Msi (1060/6700hq) for about 2 hours on arcade mode all setting ultra

without undervolting I'm running at 82/79 CPU/GPU max
with a -0.155 UV its at 79/76

bearing in mind the cooling system on the msi is tiny compared to the AW15 the thing only weighs 1.8 kgs so the AW should cool a lot better on paper, but its just not it would seem...

 

Has anyone been able to return their laptop outside of the return window for the heatsink issue?

 

Just got my replacement yesterday.
Left: old, Right: new


Left: old, Right: fixed or even lightbleed? I like the new one, the keyboard is much better too, the backspace doesn't stick. Thermal testing coming soon.

 

Cellphone camera right? I did the same with mine, and the picture came out like crap. My TN G-sync panel is really nice, bright, and crisp. but looks like **** from a pic. How do the games look? I would think that's the most important




It looks like light bleed from the bottom in the pic, but its not in real life.



Notice the darker image also looks out of focus, but the lighter background is captured better with the phone camera and looks crisper.

I have the 400 nit TN G-sync panel, and am very happy with it. On another note, I just hooked up a soundblaster X-FI Surround 5.1 PRO to my USB port, and connected it to my old Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 speakers. (those were connected to my old CyberPower PC this laptop replaced. I bought them way back in 2003 i think)

All I can say is HOLY CRAP, what a difference when gaming! Just listening to Pandora is a pleasure. I cannot turn the volume higher than 35 percent, or the windows rattle and my wife cannot hear the TV downstairs! Lovin it!

Highly recommend that combination. Soundblaster has the x-fi surround 5.1 pro on sale for $39.99
http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-x-fi-surround-5-1-pro

 

Hi guys, I want to buy an alienware 15 R3, but it looks that it have a lot of problems and I don't want another laptop. Do you think that is better wait to the next year until the laptop with Kaby Lake is out? maybe they'll fix the heat problems by then.

thanks and sorry for my bad english.

 

Based on opinions I got from some users I think they will in some way address some of the issues in the 15R4 however I am not holding my breath. I was lucky to get one with good temps and just a bad wireless card and antenna. Will give me the opportunity to do a re-paste when the parts come in.

As for performance improvements it seems like maybe a 3-5% CPU boots since they are both built of the 14nm process.

 

In the alienware official facebook page they said that only the 1% of the buyers are reporting heat problems but that's not possible, most of the posts that I read says something about heat problems.
I think that wait to the next year seems to be the best choise for now.

thanks for your answer hawkeye

 

Thing is, very large amounts of users will never even check temps.

Also a good amount will also re paste as well knowing that the dell fix will not be adequate

I put it closer to 25% (purely speculation of course)

I wonder how many they are producing is it tens of thousands? Or even hundreds?

Be interesting to know the numbers

 

I have just order mine. I wanted to wait but I got 400 $ off with the christmas deal.
Delivery expected on the 12/16.
I ordered a I7-6700 GTX 1070 Gsync panel 16Gb@2667 256 SSD with only 1 year warranty .. wtf in Switzerland an extra year cost 360 $ !! For 4 years warranty it basicaly double the price of the laptop.. crazy!
Anyway thanks to everybody here for your advices and I will let you know everything as soon as I get it!

 

Eagerly waiting for mine now...how long does it take before the order typically changes status to "In production"?

Also, about the 3 screw design on the heat-sink, it was this way on the M14x R1 and R2...R1 was notorious for heating but that was primarily owing to a stupid fan that didn't really move any air. Once you swap out the fan with that of R2, it used to work like a charm. So, the design's fine in the Alienware 15R3 but it could be a poor quality thermal paste and QC (for tightening the heat-sink in place). Moreover, I think I saw the guts on the GT62VR from MSI, which supposedly runs cooler and IIRC it also uses the same 3 screw design.

 

well i just cracked open a fresh 15, very early days but before i start cloning drives and getting it set up for me I ran the obligatory OCCT 30 min run

stock out the box temps on mine are;

core ;
0 - 76
1 - 65
2 - 75
3 - 65
package - 76

So a difference of 11 on cores but initial temps look ok?, has slight bleed on the panel right top corner nothing major though.
now to get some more thorough numbers......

 

Pretty good Stock temps

 

Hit the lottery here. Differential might be fixed w/repaste and reassembly. Let us know what the new numbers are

 

Yeah i said it was early I'll hold judgement but so far

firestrike 10243 (says garphics card not recognised though)
with an OC on GPU +200core/+500mem
Benchmarking;
CPU Temps are 83/71/78/67c
GPU 61

early days I'll get some gaming done over the next few days then Re paste i think.

 

Haha, 4 yr warranty results in double the price of the laptop hey - well that would mean that they 100% expect it to fail completely within 4 years if that's the case!

 

Been lurking in here for a bit. I have about the same temps as spiralzz, but just a bit lower, just got it last night. Max temp before the fans spun up was 94 at 3.4ghz.. So you folks think thats ok? I dont want to pull the darn thing apart right now. 6700HQ with a 1070 and 16gb or RAM

This is my second one, the first had crazy light bleed and super high temps.

Its crazy that Alienware/Dell can mess this stuff up. I mean heat sinks and LCD screen installs should be old hat by now. Dont they even power these things up before they ship them? Its not like the light bleed is hard to see.

I went with the G-sync version from the IPS 1080 and its much better but the blacks are pretty crappy. Haven had enough time to look much closer at the screen but I dont see any noticeable light bleed.

 

94 is not good for stock; although, it's looking like that's the norm. Check core differentials -- if you have anything >10 that's not good. Dell stock paste is garbage, so it's recommended that you do a repaste with Gelid Extreme or Kryonaut.

 

Spirallzz's is 10+ but you said he hit the lottery. So color me confused.

Not being a smart ass. Genuinely curious. Guess I have to decide if those temps are livable in the next 30 days.

 

I don't feel like i won the lottery but at least its not shutting itself off....

And i noticed the bezel was coming away at the bottom as others have reported, i kept pushing it but it starts to lift away.

then i noticed what felt like a bump at the bottom of the screen to the right of the Alinware logo, i pushed in here and it clicked loudly as if some thing sloted into where it should have been, no bump now and the bezel is staying put so i suposse thats some thing, its cured the slight light bleed at the bottom as well.

man they are literally just throwing these things together, say what u want about apples but I've never seen QC this bad from a supposed "premium" brand.

I will carry on as I'm tired of ****ing around now with dell so i'm determined to make this work, it may be a piece of !!!! but it is a solid one....

a 30 min battlefield 1 session in a warmer room has just given me 86/76/80/73 on the CPU

UPDATE : tried an undervolt of -0.150mv insta crash! so chip not as good as my msi however -0.100 seems stable initially and

in game CPU Max's are now 71/76/73/69 this is promising, much more testing to do though.... I know there is a good PC in there somewhere....

 

I aslo have an MSI GS73, that I use for, ahem, work. And under load the CPU sits at about 83-84(of course more even temps over the cores). It also spikes to around low 90's on first start of the CPU load until the fans kick in. I know the the cooling is much more compact but on load the alienware is so much cooler, almost 25 C in my case on the 2 "cooler" cores. So thats why I think its not such a big deal. I usually move to new hardware pretty quick. My previous one was just crazy hot and I had a few shutdowns. I didnt test too much because the screen was terrible.

 

i think dell "fixed" the issue with preundervolting the new batch lol... :S

 

Oh jeez, didn't notice that. That's a 13C differential. Combine that with the panel slipping off the bezel elevates itself to Return/Replacement ASAP

 

I have been dicked around by Dell. Ordered my AW 15 R3 on 25-NOV. Delivery date has been 2-DEC. I have had 3 calls from Dell's Verification department and they asked me the same questions each time to verify that I ordered the machine. Today I contacted the Rep that helped me order it and he said:
"That might have been a verification call to ensure the sale. The order is on hold as a part of verification so, required to call me back or provide me the best time frame to call you and fix it. Please revert back if you have further queries , I would be more than happy to help you. We appreciate your business and patience."

Calling the order line and using the automated order status and getting to the agent option forwarded me to a message saying they were closed and I needed to call back the next business day. It was 1pm Central on a Thursday.

I called the normal sales number and they were able to get him on the phone. He said there was an internal issue because I used an Alienware gift card for part of the order. He had to work with different departments to get the hold removed.

I asked when I would receive the laptop and he said he would get back to me in 20 - 40 minutes. That was 2 hours ago.

*** UPDATE ***
He called me back after 2.5 hours and said he no answer for me yet. He will call me Friday at 11am to give me the answer. I told him this was not acceptable and depending on his answer on Friday, I would either be happy, not happy and negotiate a financial remediation, or I would cancel the order.

Is this the norm working with Dell?
Has anyone else had a similar experience and what was the remediation? Did they offer anything to you for the trouble?

 

Does anyone know if the 2.5" bay accepts 15mm drives?
My google-fu was not advanced enough.
Most information I found was for older models and there was only 12.7mm of clearance.

 

9.5mm max i believe definitely not 15's buddy.

 

Ever run any tests on this?

 

Would be marginal at best. The 120hz screen uses more battery life because there is no Optimus/intel gpu. The 120hz frequency will draw more power than 60hz, but not a lot.

 

Just spoke to a Dell Support Executive and it seems that they are experiencing some kind of parts shortage. Apparently, my order is on hold right now though the executive couldn't say anything more.

I have asked her to escalate this issue and she has promised to come back with an answer by tomorrow. Keeping fingers crossed but I seem to get the feeling that maybe Dell is actually working towards addressing this heating issue on their new Alienwares and instead of coming clean, they are doing this under the guise of parts shortage. Any body else think so?

 

I think that they are just out of 6700hq's at the moment I read somewhere

Probably due to the recent release and huge demand for the 13r3

I doubt they will make any changes until kaby lake.

 

That's quite optimistic. As far as I can see to what's made public, they have already formally addressed the heating issues. This most likely means their fixes/solution passed inspections resulting as the problem labeled completed and user-end ready from a manufacturer's perspective.

Probably ran low on inventory attributable to lift in black friday/cyber monday demand

 

Looks like this fixed it. Thanks!

 

Posted this on the AW17 forum, but no response yet. I really need to know if anyone has installed a Samsung 960 Evo or Pro. If so is it recognized by Samsung Magician OK? Mine is not. Also, if I try to install the Samsung NVME driver, it fails, saying there is no NVME device.

The AW17 sees it as a "aSsmnu gSS D69 0VE O05G0 B (00.00 GB)". Brilliant!

I've taken it up with the supplier but, of course, they say it must be the laptop that is incompatible :-(

 

I have had nothing but trouble with these guys. I have been dealing with 3 teams. Order Modification group gave me $150 off though

 

OEM's usually use a different (own) firmware on the models they sell, although they are the same model as retail ssd's. Most likely, therefore, they do not work with the software.

 

The 960 Evo is a retail product, not an OEM product.

 

?
Hmmm, is it in ssd slot 2 or 3? My 850's work perfect, but not NVME. Where did you get the 960 EVO? I ordered mine but its on "pre-order" as they are not out yet here in NYC. They are telling me January for the EVO, but you can get the PRO now. Try a re-seat or a different slot first, because the driver has to load or it aint gunna fly. it may also be a bad card. I hope you took static precautions when installing right?

 

I am a Data Recovery engineer and that looks like typical drive/firmware corruption. Trying it in another machine will rule that out but that's not a good sign. Could be a dud. Has it ever worked out of the box? It definitely should be compatible with our Alienware 15 R3's. It is the same spec as my 2x Raided Intel NVMe drives.

As an unrelated side note, I managed to undervolt the cpu now and my 99c-100c CPU on full load is now finally down to 82c now. Super happy now, I had a technician coming Monday to replace the heatsink so thats definitely getting cancelled now

 

Just got my AW 15 R3 today, ordered on the 27th of Nov. i5 version with 8gb ram, 1tb hdd. No bezel issues, minor lightbleed on the all four corners, nothing that will annoy me or will make me notice it. Temps are amazing. Got highs of 65, low of 59. Stayed constant for 1 hour with OCCT. Cannot say how happy I am for this purchase. Simply amazing product with nothing to truly complain about.

 

the fact that the normal state can be this good is even more sad for those who have 90+C...

 

Unfortunately this is the i5 version so i can't talk about the possible fixes for the i7 versions. However, it does suck for others who have high temps and had to go through the problems. I'll do another temp test tomorrow.

 

Thanks. I wasn't all that hopeful since this model is slimmer than previous ones which were already limited to 12.7mm.
It would have been nice to throw in a 4TB 2.5" drive though.