*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

this is the first time for me to buy AW 15R3, I ussualy buy Sager or Clevo, I bought it on 29 November 2016, so could I still return it to get exhange? the problem is that now I stay in Singapore, I have some job there. therefore I am confused about the shipping costs and how to handle it? anyone in here have same issue before, please provide me the best way to get return or exchange the machine? thanks a lot in advance

 

Call dell and see if they can find a way.

You should expend exactly 0$ to return the item, they pay for everything.

 

Hi guys, my first post on notebookreview. I will tell my story with Alienware 15 R3. I ordered mine a week before X'mas with spec of i7 6700hq, 16gb 2666hz ram, 256gb m.2 ssd, gtx 1070, with 120hz 1080 screen. I got the laptop on 2nd Jan. I was super excited with the design. I love the stunning 120hz fresh rate screen and how the touch pad / wrist pad feels like. I urgently installed my old intel 2.5' SSD and an extra m.2 ssd. Everything works just great at that time. After an hour gaming (Overwatch). I could feel the heat raises from the keyboard. I monitored the CPU core temperature is around 85 degrees. I read on some posts saying Dell/AW has very bad thermal compound paste. I decided to repate by my own. After the repaste, the core temperature drops 2 or 3 degrees. After about a week, I saw Ads from the web saying the new Kaby lake processor became available on AW. I talk with a sale specialist about exchanging to a same laptop model with the latest Kaby lake processor. I was told I had to return the old one and place a new order. I ordered a new AW 15 R3 with i7 7820hk, 16gb 2666hz ram, 256gb m.2 ssd, gtx 1070, with 120hz 1080 screen. About 100 more buck spend comparing to the old one. (Even 7820hk has the same price of 7700hq). I received the new laptop after a week. I played an hour Overwatch. The temp hit 95+ average on core 0. I repasted with the same thermal comp, and it did not work at all. I also found my screen became unglued (The bottom line with the edge). There's a 2 mm gap between the screen and the edge. I was really upset about the Dell's quality control. I just requested a new UPS return label, and send it back to Dell. Do you guys think my new laptop with i7 7820hk's overheating a general thing or I had bad luck getting one with defect?

 

Your laptop has a broken enter key, that's the worst problem /s

And yes, Dell/AW QC just plain sucks

 

I got the system with 7820hk, 1070, 16gb 2666, 1tb (I will swap everything and have on standby 2X 1tb m.2 + 1tb Samsung evo), 120hz screen. It was about CAD$ 2700. I got it for 2200+tax. It should arrive tomorrow...

 

+ I have to thermal paste everything (but I will not touch anything until I do some short benches to make sure the system is stable). Luckily I am off tomorrow

 

On the 15r3 is connecting to a external display and achieving 144hz and above possible through the hdmi port?


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No. The 144hz is only possible through displayport or usb-c. HDMI only does max. 60hz.

 

I received my Alienware 15 R3 yesterday (i7-6700HQ, 16GB DDR3 RAM, GTX1060, 120Hz+G-Sync, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD) and it is absolutely gorgeous. Instantly fell in love with the design and the build quality.

I ran a quick Prime95 test for roughly 15 minutes and the CPU temperature peaked at 72 degrees. Did I hit the lottery or am I testing it incorrectly?

EDIT: Been playing a lot of Overwatch, Street Fighter V and other video games. CPU temps are staying at a consisten 60-62 degrees and the GPU is roughly the same. Cooling system isn't too loud either and the Tobii Eye Tracking is fantastic. Viewing angles and colour reproduction are also fantastic, this is meant to be a TN panel? I can't stop gushing about how great this is, very happy customer.

 

congratulations,

seems you got best temperatures out of the box,

could you run the witcher 3 max settings for about 1 hour ? as well as battlefield 1?

let us know temps then.

 

Just a heads up, the Custom Nameplate Poll has ended and its a great outcome!

43 'Hell Yes' Votes to get these plates manufactured! Amazing result for everyone!

If anyone hasn't seen the thread
Any love for a Custom AW Nameplate? (Poll)
or is interested in a custom plate. Please PM me your required plate details, name & shipping details over by end of week!

Again, thanks to all for the support over the last week! Great stuff!

Cheers

Rairch

 

I just got my laptop last week

I have the 6820HK and saw momentary spikes near 100C last night playing games

Not sure yet if I will repaste or have dell do something about it

As far as quality control goes. In instantly noticed the gap at the bottom of the screen it has to do with the laptop getting hot and the adhesive strip that runs the bottom of the panel becomes warm and un-glues from the plastic cover itself leaving a pretty significant gap. The biggest reason I can see causing this is because my plastic is warped outward slightly (towards the user when looking at the laptop) so it further assists in pulling the adhesive apart. I can push it back together but it doesn't hold for long! lol

Another issue I have had is my backspace key is super noisy. Also, my right arrow key, enter key, and ? were sticking. All of them except the ? are unstuck. Kinda annoying for how much I paid but so far this thing is a beast for being a laptop. My first alienware ever!

 

Perfect luckily these come equipped with a mini display port.. thanks for the reply! Now as far gaming monitors are there any that come in a glossy display?


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I'll have to buy those games hehe, anything else I can use to benchmark it?

 

Crisys 3 is very cheap nowadays.

 

Better Call DELL ...

 

Asking someone else to buy games....

 

Always create a baseline so you know just how much you attained from your repaste. I went from +95C (stock) to below 70C with Liquid metal

 

What's odd is I just did a prime95 test for a while max load and saw 78C spike max but average around 65-70C.

I wonder if I was seeing spikes to 100C earlier because I had the device on my lap and it was getting heat soaked? This is very odd, I will see what happens as far as temps the next few days and go from there. Worst case scenario I get permission to reapply thermal paste, did that on all of my old laptops and it always helps!

 

Nevermind I don't know what I was thinking checking with just prime95 or similar software. Since GPU and CPU heat pipes are connected you have to load both to see true peak temps of either the CPU or GPU.

GPU and CPU under full load I am seeing 80-85C peak, average is around 70-75C

 

Hey everyone. I got my alienware 15 about 2 months ago. Its got the 6820 i7 and 4k screen with 1070gtx running 16gb ram.
I havent had any issues playing for the first couple of weeks and all of a sudden it just kept on crashing me mid games. I cant play competitive overwatch or battlefield 1 for 10 minutes without the laptop crashing the games. got all my drivers updated and did all the dell stress tests. no issues there either. Took it to a repair store and they did a full diagnostics test with no results helping. Applied thermal paste to help temps and still facing the issues. Lots of BSOD mid game with many different error codes. Tried resetting and still once again. No luck Please help I cant enjoy this brand new laptop without it crashing when i game. PS (BSOD and Application crashes only happen with Games)

 

Tried using different RAM modules? Is your CPU overclocked?

 

i didnt try changing the ram no. And my cpu is not overclocked .. Do you think the ram might be a cause to the issue ? I have the 2667 model. Im willing to get new ram if itll help solve this dillema

 

So Alienware sent me the new Kaby Lake replacement for the one I was having issues with (if you're calm and courteous, their customer service is bar none!), and I decided to do a side-by-side comparison between the one I am sending back (IPS 1080p display) and my new beast (TN+WVA 1080p 120 Hz). Here are some shots for you all that may be on the fence and hesitant to go with the TN. It actually does have great viewing angles (except from the bottom, but that doesn't matter much anyway). Skylake IPS has AlienFX in pink while the new Kaby Lake TN is in teal.

 

Hi 15R3 owners,

I got my Laptop this week (6700HQ, GTX1070) and after some undervolting of CPU & GPU I'm very satisfied with temperatures & fan noise!

6700HQ is running with offset of -150mV, GTX 1070 runs @~1700MHz with only 0,78V!
(using Intel XTU and EVGA Precision X)

When Gaming/Benchmarking (e.g. 3DMark Timespy, Collision Course (CryEngine3)), the whole system (with Power Supply) pulls a max. of 130 Watts out of the socket! :-D

Fans are much quieter when gaming (off in windows), temps reach ~75°C max. for CPU and 62°C for GPU.

 

Have you looked under administrative tools -> event viewer -> windows logs -> applications to see if Windows notices anything in particular that was causing the issue?

I have identical specs to you accept I have different ram and ssd, but still very similar so we need to stay in touch and figure that out.

 

Do these really use such a small amount of power? I mean I know they can get lose, the CPU is about 48 I just don't see the GPU being 90 or so. Especially when peoplewith 6820K + 1080 are using more than 250W (draining battery while charging+ gaming)

 

Usually Processors (CPUs & GPUs) are running with higher voltage than necessary, to be on safe side, and be able to use lower quality chips instead of rejecting them.

In addition to that there is a sweet spot for efficiency - "high end hardware" is configured for max. performance in the first place. To get 20% higher clocks you often have to raise voltage etc. with the result that your system needs 50%+ more energy.
A good example is my desktop AMD R9 390, which by default consumes a lot of power and has not much overclocking-headroom... By undervolting & reducing the clock a little bit I manged to reduce power consumtion by ~100W.

In another forum one guy downclocked his desktop GTX1070 by ~20% and saved 50% energy (he wrote nothing about actively lowering voltage, but it's automatically being reduced @lower clocks).

 

Ohhh I thought you added 0.78 voltage. Yeah I'm well aware of the benefits of undervolting, I prefer to undervolt while keeping the at least stock clocks, but usually one can undervolt and overclock too. Will definitely have to test that out when I receive my replacement. This laptop already gets 4-5hrs (not gaming) with a 1070 + 120Hz screen, wonder how much a GPU undervolt will get

 

Quick question about the Intel 8265! I just bought one to replace the Killer 1535! The question is since Microsoft removed the WIDI driver and Intel no longer supports WIDI How do you get WIDI to work?

 

quick question:

How much you did undervolt the 1070?

and more important how you did it?

Does it run on startup of the laptop? or do you need to launch application each time you login.

What temps do you get actually with the witcher 3 or bf1?

 

Hi all, how is the latest BIOS firmware, 1.0.9? Can it be used or are there any issues with it?


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At the moment I'm using EVGA Precision X, can't get MSI Afterburner to work :-/
It starts up with windows, you can save different profiles (e.g. one for Overclocking, one for max. power save,.....)

I think compared to standard settings with a bit of underclocking I've undervolted the GPU by ~-200mV

Under "OC-Scanner" I set the function to "manual", than you can set an frequency-offset for each voltage (this logic seemed a bit strange to me first...)

To be sure the GPU stays at a lower voltage, the green pixels need to be at least at the same level as the blue ones on the right side, otherwiese the GPU would try to boost with the highest possible clock and voltage jumps to 1.1V

 

What are you currently on?

 

Running on 1.0.8

I heard that 1.0.9 has more overclocking options also.


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You should call dell, that sounds like a lemon unit.

You need to use OCCT since prime95 can draw too much power from the CPU and potentially degrade it.

If you don't overclock the CPU then the 240w is enough, with the 6820 I had to use my Alienware 18 330w to keep the battery from draining under load.

Keep in mind that the power supply can do 80-85% of it's rated capacity as a maximum output current.

Cannot.

@Vassilis008 reported that 1.0.9 unlocked the cpu power limit for him but other members say that 1.0.9 actually cause worse overclock, so mixed bag of result


You can always go ahead and flash 1.0.9 if curious, if you do decide to flash 1.0.9 please report back.

 

That makes a lot of sense, didn't even think about that, most do take the 6820K to 4.2Ghz

 

Replacement unit was delivered today in the cold. The system is very cold from the cold outside temps. How long do I need to wait in room temp to warm up to power it on?


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After 6 weeks of arguing I got my replacement unit today. My og unit: 6700 with 120 hz 1070, 256+1 tb ssd/hdd had 99 temps x4 out of the box and the screen bezel separating. I sent it in to repair and it came back 3 weeks later with the heat fixed (71x4 on stress) and the bezel fixed but the 120 FHD was screwed up. It would only run at 60 hz and the color was screwey and it was really washed out. Tech came and replaced with another 120 FHD (I verified the item numbers) and no change. The screen itself was working perfect before sending it in.

I assume they screwed something up on the mobo when repairing the heatsink.

Got approved for a replacement unit. Same specs except 7700hq (I tried to argue them into a 7820 but no luck, same for upgrading the ssd). And it's here finally.

Will update on temps after I get it fired up when it warms back up to room temp.

What's the best way to move data from my old unit to the new one? Ethernet cable direct connect or USB stick or what? I don't want to spend a million hours downloading overwatch again lol


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Why not simply plug the other HDD/M.2 in? I'm pretty sure these are THE EXACT same 1TB HDD, RAM, fans, laptop cases, possibly screens, as the 17R4 & 15R3

 

I updated everything available, including 1.0.9 last Friday and everything is running fine. The killer wireless driver hung on install, but I was able to reboot and it had installed ok. After the chipset updates, It seems like the fans stay quite a lot more now, but that is just a feeling, not a timed test.

 

I have to reccommend the asus vg248qe. It will do 144hz is glossy is bright and is great for games.

 

I have this monitor and def recommend it. There's a few pages that help with calibrating the color on it. One problem though is I paid 170$ in July, now its showing like 250$+ everywhere. I wonder if its due to the LightBoost mod. It's definitely amazing how clear it works, makes 120 and even 144Hz look blurry.

http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/

 

7 for 7. Knock on wood...

 

Sorry, confused. What is going on here.

 

It is a known issue that the Killer WiFi Cards (1435 and 1535 Models) have very weak pin (contact points) that break off into the WiFi wire. It's usually the white cable and if someone were to call Dell about issue, they would just replace the whole darn display unit over a darn wire. The reason is because the antenna array runs deep into the display so it's a pain in the rear to replace as you'll need to literally take apart ALL of the laptop just to get to it. It's ridiculous.

So for someone that ends up getting a good display with minimal light bleed and ends up breaking the pin on the WiFi card that gets stuck in the wire that's connected to the display....what do you do? Sucks right?

The only option in order to keep that lucky display is to remove the broken in put of the wires, otherwise you'll end up having to use a USB WiFi card....Sucks even more....

I've successfully extracted 7 pins so far out of 7 of the units that my clients have sent me. 4 out of 7 of those were sent only to extract the pins because, they wanted to keep the display and didn't want to risk getting a crappy replacement.

 

How to disable battery charging on the new Alienware?

Lenovo laptops have an option to limit battery charge to 60% (Lenovo Energy Manager - Conservation mode). Is there a similar option in the new AW's?
My laptop is usually plugged in and the last thing I want is always having a 100% charged battery in a hot running system. That degrades battery life quickly.
I cannot see "Desktop mode battery charge" option anywhere. Installed the Alienware OSD application too.

 

After updating drivers Optimus stopped working completely. 1070 is always on even on empty desktop. Did anyone experienced the same?

 

Are you sure you didn't switch to permanently use the dGPU? I think the keys for that are Function+F7


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Yes, I've even tried switching to dGPU mode and back, but this doesn't help.