*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

Yeah I have been doing that and then the issue goes away as I said in my initial post. Does this seem like a hardware issue or a cable issue? Would you return it given that this is happening or just deal with it? Thermals on my unit are amazing, game at sub 80C on both GPU and CPU, same when I run Prime95.

 

Have you tried uninstalling all the stock bloatware with Revo Uninstaller?

 

I have done everything, even formatted, uninstalled all the drivers, installed 3 different ones, it seems like a loose cable in the unit or a faulty one. But I want a replacement and not a repair since this was out of the box failure.

 

I gave Dell one more chance since they supposedly fixed the heat issues.. And of course they are making regret it. Why is it that Dell can NEVER EVER seem to give you an accurate date of delivery? Every time I have ordered from them they miss there date quoted on the web page by a week or more?

 

check rear cable underneath the vent cover

check if external display is working

I think dell has a service center in your area, doesn't hurt trying to contact them

 

External display is fine and when I use the Nvidia card by switching using FN + F7 then it also works. But when I display through HD 530 it does that pixels thing. Even if I play a game which uses the Nvidia card then, then it still does it, only if I switch using FN + F7 to bypass the HD 530 does it go away or when I use external display. Where exactly is the cable? And how do I get to it?

 

Is it supposed to use battery under heavy load or I have faulty power adapter?

 

I'm curious, never had a gaming/high powered laptop like this until now. Does a laptop cooler actually help more than a few degrees? Anyone do any tests with a laptop cooler running benchmarks/occt?

 

So have any of you been given a form to fill out to waive your current delivery date due to FTC laws or get your order canceled?

 

on my 15R3 it will drain the battery under heavy load, the PSU is too small to handle a 1070 and 6820HK

 

So Dellienware has continued with battery boost? Have you tested with a KILL-A-Watt to see when hybrid functionality begin to steal power from the battery? Does this happen after you've maxed your psu or will the battery be drained at a lower power level than the rated maximum(+264w for the 240w model)?

 

I don't have that device.

Battery drained from 100% to 26% within 3 hours then I stopped the test in fear of damage.

With the 330w (from AW17R4) attached the computer has no problem with running OCCT + Heaven.


Maybe if you don't overclock the CPU the battery will not drain under load.

 

With What a clock speed? Dell guarantee you 3.9GHz on all 4 cores. Have you seen if 3.9GHz can drain the battery?

 

I was running at 4.0, so I think 3.9 has about the same chance to drain battery.

 

That... Dellienware continue to deliver a too weak psu once again. If Dell guarantee you overclocking of the CPU, they should deliver a PSU that can handle the task. But they use hybrid bios instead. Oh'' well Although other OEMs do the same... They should avoided it and supply with the 330w. The cost is about the same. I had to pay more for the 240w vs. 330w here home. I had to buy a new PSU for my AW17 because the 240W was too weak and asked for the price.

 

Hi all,

Well my new 15R3 arrived a few days ago and it is an absolute joy. I had the GS73VR and it got so hot the base would literally burn me if I touched it. It also melted the SATA cable due to heat and was in general a piece of junk with shocking build quality.

Using this new machine I can play any game with a 150mhz overlock on my GPU and it still refuses to get over 70 degrees on the CPU/GPU. I am truly impressed that I can have this in my lap and play compared to the GS73. I went with the standard 1070/16gig/1080ips. It is so damn heavy though compared to the GS73 but to be honest it is worth it for such amazing battery life. There "touch wood" isn't a single issue with this machine and I am truly impressed with it.

I've stress tested it with 3Dmark and prime and it won't go above 70 on any core. They are all within one or two degrees of each other. The bios is 1.08 but I am using throttlestop to increase all the cores to 35. If I have done this will that override the bios downclock on 1.08? Or is it still throttled regardless of what throttlestop is telling me?

Overall I am so pleased with this machine. It was purchased on the 9th of December, built on the 17th and shipped on the 22nd.

Thanks for an informative thread all.

 

you can't increase all core to 3.5, 6700hq is locked to 3.1 if all 4 is loaded

 

Thanks mate. So do you think throttlestop is misreporting as it states 33 in the taskbar. Very hard to read what's going on....

 

If it is only with OCing i do not consider it a problem. The 330watt is terribly big if you want to carry it. It would be a nice choice in the system configurator when ordering though.

 

with how big the 240w is, the 330w isn't that much bigger

 

The ones I saw are twice the thickness? An actual brick. THey change the formfactor?

 

Twice, yes.

But with the laptop being so deep and the brick essentially the same lengthxwidth, I'd say the 330w is not that much bigger than what people perceive it might be.

 

Offer Oc on processor + desktop graphics and not can feed the hardware with enough power and rather must rely on Hybrid Bios aka Battery boost isn't the correct combination. But very smart if Dell can sell you a new battery before needed due awful battery drain.

26.5 vs. 43mm isn't a very big difference. Maybe Dell should rather offer only locked 6700hq due lack of enough powa to feed the hardware. The same for all brands models with similar setup!!

 

I just received my 15r3, ordered on 11.29, shipped 12.06, received today..

It's the 6700HQ with GTX1070 and Gsync panel.

So first thing I did was install OCCT, as I am a total newbie I did not change any settings I just run the test for 30 min and I get max temp:

#0 80°C
#1 74°C
#2 80°C
#3 72°C

I took the laptop out of the box, turn it on and run OCCT straight away.

So what you guys think?

Edit: I did a slight undervolt -60.5 mv and now I get #0 74°C #1 71°C #2 75°C #3 69°C

 

Thats seems ok, and better than a lot out there, but try and run games or at least run some graphics stressing at the same time there you will see real temps as OCCT just does the cpu and on it's own isnt a real reflection of your temps.

but 8c difference is acceptable

try and loop heaven or furmark whilst doing your OCCT then you will see what the realistic temps your machine is going to hit in heavy usage.

 

OCCT, while a nice utility for testing, doesn't hit as hard as prime95 which will computationally soak up all the CPU performance to the power limit, and generate the best heat values for checking the core differential.

Some games hit harder than OCCT as well, so if you are going to not use prime95 then make sure to use your most CPU driven games to test too.

Make sure you find problems within the acceptance period so you can return it instead of starting what might be a long ride on the RMA repair train.

6C differential isn't real bad, it's outside what I would want to accept, knowing it was found using OCCT, my guess is that will widen to 10C+ with prime95 or another heavy computational test.

 

Undervolt of -120 mv with Intel extreme tuning.

30 mins OCCT with Heaven runing on ultra and all settings max I got : 95 - 93 - 95 - 94.

GPU is at 72°C

 

When can we expect Kaby Lake?
Just got a email saying my order was pushed back to January and thinking about canceling the order and just waiting .
I know the performance gain will only be minimal but still if it's out relatively soon I can wait and hope they worked out all the thermal issues .
Not sure what I'm going to do until I hear back from them.

 

For this kind of testing, you will get stable temps after a few minutes. I only run these tests for 5 minutes, rarely 15 minutes. Same for prime95.

 

Merry Christmas everybody

After playing 2 hours LOTR Mordor on ultra I get 92 - 91 - 93 - 89. The fan is running constantly at max.

I only did an undervolt of -120 mv with Intel Extreme Tuning.

 

Yeah, that's pretty hot, right at thermal throttling - did you see thermal throttling "Yes"'s in the hwinfo64 info? Red numbers instead of black?

Without undervolt you would be way too hot. With that undervolt you should be seeing much better temps.

And, you are getting those numbers with 100% fan cooling, so that's not good either.

Did you try any prime95 runs?
http://www.mersenne.org/download/

That benchmark seems to drive the CPU fully so you can see the core differential best. There are gaming runs that do too, but it's easier and more comparable / repeatable to others test results to use p95.

It looks like you need a re-paste and new thermal pads - the thinner ones Dell said need to be fitted to even out the heatsink pressure properly.

RMA repair, unit swap for a new production version, or DIY.

Happy Holidays

 

Thank you for your answer @hmscott

I have undervolt a bit more. I tried with Intel Extreme Tuning all the way until the laptop crash. So I have now a undervolt of -175mv.

With prime95 and heaven runing for 20 mins I get 82 - 81 - 84 - 80.

After playing around 2 hours LOTR Mordor I get 79 - 78 - 80 - 77.

The fan is running at max and it's quite noisy.

I think after a repaste this laptop will be perfect, but tbh I'm a bit scared of doing it myself. I have build my own desktop computer in the past but I have never deassemble a laptop.

Edit: The laptop crashed after 1h30 of gaming, on reboot Intel Extreme Tuning open up with undervolt back to 0, I guess -175mv was too much but strange it crashed after 1h30.

 

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you get to enjoy some downtime with the family and get to play some games. So my laptop would not power on yesterday for some reason. Pressing the Alien head would make it turn blue for a second. but then it would go dark and flash red twice. No boot. I called support, and was not very hopeful, but pressing and holding the power button for 30 seconds actually worked, and it booted after that. They upgraded my BIOS from 1.06 to 1.08, and now all seems well.

Just wanted to pass along that trick just in case others have a similar issue.

 

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all! I've got a Prime Rib in the smoker and more family heading my way, I hope the rest of your holiday goes well. Although my laptop didn't make it before Christmas, my son's did and it runs cool under heavy load (80-85C) with only about 3-5 degrees difference between cores.

 

Well that's better, those core differential temps aren't bad at all now. Maybe the CPU hot runs helped seat the heatplate and paste for better even contact.

If you can run on normal auto fans, for temps not too much higher, you could leave it alone for now.

The better undervolt helped too, nice work

 

Merry Christmas Guys!! Been a fun past few months. It looks like my 13R3 is going to ship in 2 days so I will do some comparisons between that and my 15R3 to see which one I keep.

 

You can send it to one of four LHz members

@DeeX @iunlock @zergslayer69 or me @Mobius 1 foe a repaste service

 

Does the AW17R4 still use Dell's proprietary drivers or Nvidia drivers?

Has anyone ever received the units that had the temperature problem solved? If yes, what are the maximum temperatures obtained during the tests? And what was the ambient temperature during the tests?

 

To be completely honest it is still a luck of the draw, but a lot better than before. The "fix" that is being referred to is the use of a slimmer thermal material and applying actual paste on the CPU die, instead of the stamp straight from the factory. It helps.....but..... hmm.... well it's okayish for those staying stock, but for any type of major overclocking....mmmm NO. Staying stock on any system in this scenario is a big no no.

My personal unit, stock ran okay numbers when stressed staying in the mid to high 80C's, while the GPU did pretty okay as well in the mid 60C's. Still not ideal, especially after seeing what these systems can do under load with a LM repaste. Ambient temps are always 22.5C in my office/workstation.

 

From what I noticed, most Notebooks are keeping temperatures between 80-90 C in the processor. Do the reapplying the thermal paste is not an easy task for someone who is clumsy, so I'll settle for these temperatures. Thank You IUnlock.

 

What's the verdict on the dozens and dozens of 15 R3 on the dell outlet? I remember someone bought one 3 weeks ago and it was horrible? Should I not go through the outlet for the R3 at this time?

 

You're welcome. When you can please post some screen shots of the stock temps. Thanks

 

Would it be safe to say that the new Alienware laptops are still flawed?
I saw that you wrote that it's still a lottery.
I recently bought a 15r3. Set to arrive on the 30th. Will be mighty pissed to find out that the fix is just a marketing ploy.

 

I wouldn't call it a marketing ploy as we've already shown that the thermal pad causing the issue has been changed out, along with them using actual thermal paste instead of a stamp on the CPU.

The 15R3 you'll be receiving, if new, will likely be the "fixed," unit. If not, then either A.) It's a unit that was built before they've started implementing the fix or B.) Another issue of the thermal pads not being on properly.

PM me. If you're up for it I'd be glad to do a teamviewer session to take it for a spin right out of the box. I can then tell you for sure if it's a keeper or not and trust me....I'll let you know if it needs to go back.

 

Hello!



This is what I got after 1h30 of gaming.
Stock temps only undervolt by -175mv.

This morning I start playing on battery and did a 20 mins OCCT with Heaven running on ultra. I got much lower temps and the fan is very quiet on the battery. As soon as I plug in the fan kick in and the temps start rising a bit more. I need to do more testing on battery.

Thanks for the offer, I would love to but I'm in Switzerland and I guess you guys are in the US.

 

I wouldn't, I bought one and it's currently back at dell for repairs for broken parts.

 

I got one and it actually is fine. They don't seem to have the fixes like the new ones that are being built however.

 

Geez, they got them back likely as issues with these heat sinks and they just flip them and sell them to the next person in line with no fix. Love it! Nice work Dell.

My 3rd unit is supposed to be here by the 29th now. Anxious to see if its proper across the board. I dont have high hopes. Especially since I was forced to order with an IPS screen(the Gsync one was horrid anyway, terrible grays/blacks). This is the last time I try.

 

Hi,

so in other word´s: there´s no chance about to receive a brand new manufactured "fixed" AW 15 R3 in front of March? (that´s what i see as forecast, march/april) *muhaha*, i guess they directly skip into the kabylakes or ?

Regards
aVa