*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

Tried it in both slots. Got it from Span.com in the UK. Availability is very low - I ordered a Pro 6 weeks ago, but took the Evo because it arrived first.

 

I should have mentioned that the drive does work perfectly, but it is not recognized by Samsung Magician as a "Samsung" drive. The scrambled drive ID and zero capacity is a bit worrying. Hwinfo also reports zero data parameters about the drive
- i.e. no info on capacity, geometry, transfer modes, etc.

 

I just ordered a Alienware 15 R3 with i7-6700HQ, GTX 1060, 15.6 inch FHD IPS, and Killer 1535. Unfortunately, I didn't think about reading up on the Killer cards. I have found many past complaints about the Killer1535 and 1425 wireless cards with customers experiencing frequent connection drops. Do these wireless cards still have issues?

 

It may be ok if you update the bluetooth driver from the Killer Wireless website.

 

i keep getting this , if i set defaults it all works , but a few minuets later the same msg comes up " settings disabled due to current power plan ,

anyone know how to correct it ?

 

I am thinking about ordering my first Alienware, I am leaning toward the 15. Are there any issues I should be aware of?

I am looking at a 6700HQ, 16gig, FHD, 256+1Tb, 1060

 

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

 

i7-6700HQ & 1060

Just re pasted with Thermal grizzly kryo, used spread method (i know, i know) as its what I've always done for years, very careful using large magnifying glass i put a very thin layer over the whole die, CPU&GPU.

I also Bent the top arm (the one on its own) on the CPU heat sink screw

to get temps i did a 15min run initially of OCCT with Heaven looping in the back ground.

before;


After;

 

Hello. A week ago I received my AW15 R3 (i7 6700HQ, GTX 1070, 16gb ram, FHD IPS, 256 M2). The core temp difference was around 8-11C. After repaste with IC Diamond and BIOS 1.0.8 I got high temps in Tomb Raider 81/77/79/75 so I think this is ok (this is without undervolting). I noticed a hot spot in left of the keyboard (above of USB port). Is it normal ? It is the hottest spot in my pc, even when I'm working (CPU temp ~56-65C) on my AW. Also the ssd getting temps around 70C while I'm playing some games, is it normal?!

 

I would say 81-75 whilst gaming is nothing to worry about at all, not sure on the SSD though

 

My repaste with Conductonaught gives me temps of 66/61/65/66 after playing Tomb Raider for an hour. GPU maxed out at 68. Very happy with that.

Still hoping that someone else will install a Samsung 960 and report back on their findings. Mine is weird so doesn't report temperatures.

 

You use a cooling pad or just on the table? Did you change the thermal pads? And did you undervolt ?

 

Is 1 tube of grizzly enough for CPU and GPU or should I get 2?

 

One is enough (1 gr)

 

Do you think repaste the Aw15 R3 is possible for a total newbie ? I receive mine next week

 

You only need a tiny amount 1 tube will do 2 or 3 times easy

Yes if you follow the dell service manual and are carefull should be no problem

Be carefull if you get a tight screw, make sure to use the right size driver as they can be easy to round off.

 

No cooling pad, but rear is raised a bit. Didn't change thermal pads. Undervolted -150 to get those temps.

 

...and don't disconnect the Killer wireless card!

 

Why ?

 

You are likely to pull the terminals off the card. I did that twice - now on my third card.

You can repaste without disconnecting it...

 

Thanks for the reply! I think I did the same mistake with one of the terminals, but somehow I succeeded to contact the antenna to the card again. The model is 1435, so now I ordered the 1535 card in case of emergency.

After undervolting -0.150 and on cooling pad - 73/70/71/68 - only 5 degree difference!!

Can I undervolt without cache voltage? Only core voltage? XTU doesn't permit me.

 

-150 was the core voltage offset. Cache voltage offset reflects the same value.

 

never had that issue my self i just wiggle them left n right and they pop off, I always ditch the killler anyways just personal preference to chuck in an intel 8260 straight off the bat.

 

How do you setup and calibrate the Tobii eye tracking? I click the Taskbar icon but I only see this. There is no Eye icon and settings has no option to create a profile.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk

 

Mine says it's controlled by my power settings or something I posted about it a page or 2 back I have to keep hitting set defaults to get it to work

Sent from my SM-G935W8 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks! I changed it to enabled and it's working. I still can't figure out how to calibrate it and setup a profile. But now the keyboard lights and stuff turn off and the screen dims, but it needs some calibration.

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Well I am going to have to return mine again. Noticed last night that the bezel is slowly pulling away over the Alienware logo on the screen. Pressing it back in doesn't help. Tried seeing if a clip was missed by squeezing the whole bottom but no joy. So disappointed in these machines. QA stinks at dell apparently. Guess I need to try another brand.

These issues which seem to be common could easily be fixed if someone, anyone was paying attention at all.

 

The Alienware specs show the M.2 slots to be UEFI and NVMe compliant, I would return the stick as defective, especially since the samsung software does not recognize it. You tried multiple slots. Note that the OS should be 64bit for the NVMe driver to work, and turn off RAID in the BIOS.

Massive difference! Is that without under volting?

Mine is on order. I will report my findings as soon as it arrives. I am currently using 1 x 850 M.2 1TB, and 1 x 850 2.5 SSD. The 960 EVO will make it 3TB. What capacity is your 960 EVO? also, has anyone figured out what the hell to put in M.2 slot 1? It's a half height slot. Waste in my opinion, as it limits your options for that slot.

 

Check it randomly in a few hrs under setting see if its still enabled. Maybe reboot and check

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I put a 128GB M.2 SSD (SATA) in the 42mm slot.

 

Has anyone calibrated the color on their screens? I found that turning down the red and green a tad helped mine feel a lot closer to what it should be but lack the equipment to do this with any precision.

Used the tools mentioned here: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/calibrate-laptop-display-52343.html

If anyone has a screen profile from a proper calibration they can share that would be great.

Thanks!

 

1. colorimeter
2. displaycal
3. your eye is as accurate as a potato launched from a plane trying to hit ISIS

 

Wasn't defending my eyes as the end all be all, simply stating that it seems the display could be configured better and asking if anyone had taken any actions in that direction and asking what they did. I just ordered one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055MBQOM/

And will let you all know what I get out of it. I know it is not the fanciest unit on the market but it should get me a lot closer to real colors than what I have currently (eyes).

 

yes that's standard, that was just an initial run though.

I Did a 3 hour gaming run with a very small under volt of -0.050 played some dirt rally and battlefeild 1 mainly max temps 78/70/76/71 with 68 on the GPU, averages were in the high 60's over the three hours, should improve over the next weeks as the kryo cures a bit.

more than happy with those temps I wont bother with LM now no need really.

 

I wonder if you could just add a washer to the two screws that are on the same side so they do not go in as tight as to even it out for the single screw side so the pressure is even.

 

I was able to get some decent temps just by undervolting. Stock with a -.170 UV I was getting great average temps and max temps. Even at an OC at the first bios preset with an UV of -.90 I was getting decent average temps. Max temp of 91 on Core 0 though. So I am still going to repaste, but this is not bad.

Stock:

Stock Uv by Mechanized Menace posted Dec 4, 2016 at 12:31 AM

OC:

 

I'm using windows 10 pro. I've got the Samsung as my boot drive, so if I turn off Raid in the BIOS (to AHCI) it won't boot.

The EVO is 500GB. Any idea when your 960 will arrive? You will then provide the final proof whether it is the stick or the laptop.

Yes, that half height slot is stupid. What were they thinking. 3Tb is more than than enough, though!

 

Someone getting issues with hot spot on left of the keyboard (left of tactics keys, over the usb port) ?

 

Yeah mine does get quite warm there as well?

be interested to see someones results doing this, I'm not sure it would work though, I got mine to acceptable differences just bend the arm up very slightly maybe 1 or 2mm max differences are now same as my 2 desktops pretty much.

Could some one let me know the Part number or better upload a pic of the label on the 99wr battery? as i got a great deal on a pre built i was unable to upgrade the battery and wouldn't mind in the future putting the 99 in mine.

 

You would think if the issue is as simple to fix as the bend angle of the one attachment point they could get this fixed in the factory...

Either way it would be interesting to see how washers effect the temps because maybe that is something simple enough for Alienware to actually apply to their production process and fix the issue.

 

anyone have any themes made up for the 15 r3 able to share ?

 

This is the battery (99WHR) in my AW15.

MG2YH - BATTERY, PRIMARY, 99WHR, 6C, LITHIUM, SYMMETRIC MULTIPROCESSING

 

It says 2-4 weeks on their website: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/
Funny that New York City seems to be last on the list to get this SSD!

By the way, I turned off RAID and selected AHCI with my 850 EVO M/2, and it boots just fine. I read somewhere (Redit I think) that the RAID setting is actually not supported on this laptop, and may cause issues with NVMe boot.

I was also doing some research on real world benefits of the 950 and 960 NVMe m.2 cards over the SATA III 850 EVO, and was a bit bummed out by what I found. I was hoping that moving from SATA III to PCIe 3 with NVMe would be just as much as a speed kick as going from HDD to SSD, as the benchmarks are kickass, but alas, unless you are doing things like database or backup, or moving large sequential files, it may not be worth the extra bucks. If you read the techreport testing on game load and boot times, the difference is minimal.

http://techreport.com/review/29221/samsung-950-pro-512gb-ssd-reviewed/4



I am not sure its worth the extra $150 bucks for the 960 EVO 1TB over the 850 1TB to get .3 seconds faster load times.



Boot time difference with the 950 PRO vs the 850 EVO is also weird, as it looks like the 850 is actually faster!

I am not sure if when these folks did their test, that the did not have a current NVMe driver loaded, or if the results really are this negligible.

Now, I KNOW that NVMe as a protocol is light years better than SCSI over SATA, as the command queue depth of NVMe just blows SCSI away (The SCSI protocol was developed for the HDD drive world, and NVMe does away with the latencies due to massive queue depth) 64K queues with 64K commands per Queue! (typical SCSI connections for HDD, even over Fibre channel default to 32 or 64), so if I was running a SQL or Oracle application, I would jump on it, but for gaming and boot times? The bottleneck there is probably not the bus or the protocol, as around 500MB/s seems just fine, and latencies are probably similar between the two on a laptop.

If this is the case, I may just cancel my order for the 960, and just buy a bigger 850 EVO!

Hey decca... Interesting comment from this guy over in the techreport comments, which may be helpful to you. Do you have secure boot turned on?

http://techreport.com/discussion/30993/samsung-960-evo-ssd-reviewed#metal

WaltC
Nov 2102:14 PM
+-+5
I'm still getting this error in Windows' event viewer system log...Win10x64, build 14971...I've had this error in every build of Win10x64, and in every version of the Magician Samsung software (for my SIII 256GB 850 EVO):

"The MagicianSataModeReader service failed to start due to the following error: Windows cannot verify the digital signature for this file. A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source."

*Note that there is no "service" by this name in Services.

What's happening is that when secure boot is on in a Win10 UEFI system then the component reads as an incorrect signature and won't load. The result is when I run the Magician software (4.9.7--and all previous versions of Magician) the Magician interface says that my Sata III bus is disconnected and that my AHCI controller is not running in AHCI mode. Thankfully, though, what Magician is telling me there is false--my Sata III bus is running just fine and my system is running in AHCI mode properly because *cough* my EVO 850 SSD *would not boot otherwise* and would just sit there--useless! Not to mention all of my other hard drives, too!...

Workaround: simply boot with secure boot turned off and the Magician drivers initialize and load fine and the Magician software correctly ID's my bus and mode. I leave secure boot on.

But as these things go this is not a severe problem but really a very simple and purely cosmetic problem--I don't even need Magician installed to use the drive, actually. But that's not the point, really. The point for me is that after almost two years and more than a full year since the official launch of Win10--Samsung still has not *fixed* this simple driver initialization bug in its Magician software! A search on the Internet reveals quite a sizable number of people affected by this bug at present--but still no fix from Samsung!

With hardware devices of all kinds the software interface for the control of those devices is equally as important as the device itself, of course--bad driver/controller software can ruin even the best piece of hardware. So I don't know if I'll be buying NVMe hardware from Samsung next year when I move to NVMe, because I'm not impressed by the fact that the problem I mentioned here--although it's purely a cosmetic problem--has yet to be fixed by Samsung even after all of this time. It's just sloppy if nothing else.

Thought I'd mention this to see if anyone @ tech_report has come across a fix for this...? Thanks!...

 

I definitely cannot boot in AHCI mode - tried it a few times. NVME boots fine in any case.

I agree with you about the speed benefits. I can't tell any difference at all between my 500Gb Samsung M.2 AHCI and the 500Gb 960 EVO NVME. I have tried both as boot drives too. Faster than SATA but not really noticeable in real world use.

See here:

I tried turning off secure boot, but it made no difference regarding my 960 EVO. I think it might be a dud...

 

Samsung, purveyors of the worlds finest snake oil .... .... "Pro juice"

just kidding couldn't help myself...

 

I am curios everyone's thoughts on the FHD vs UHD panels Which is the better choice.

Would I notice a problem by dropping games down to 1080p?

 

Just repasted the CPU and GPU with OCZ Freeze. Decent quality TIM that I have been using literally for years without issue. Dropped my hottest core in Prime95 from 98c to 78c with the regular fans, not performance mode. I also did not see a spread of more than 7c across all cores with no manipulation of the heatsink or arms that screw down, just got rid of all the crap dell paste and replaced with mine. Screwed everything down to finger tight. Super happy with the results

You do NOT need to use liquid metal at all to get good results guys - fyi.

 

Stock paste/pads, UV -.150, and on BIOS 1.08. 10 minute stress test in XTU. Agreed LM is not needed to get good temps. I was getting 96 on my hottest core in Firestrike Ultra prior to the BIOS update and the undervolt and low/mid 80's on the rest of my cores. Repasting and padding will only bring even better results!

 

You mind if I ask you which application method you used?

 

I always do a pea sized blob in the middle of the die and let the heatsink pressure spread it out. Least risk of bubbles then and helps fill the gap if heatsink is uneven

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