*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

Technician changed mobo but now my 15 is a 17 according to bios, and the speaker is damaged. Will get new ones again.

Also is my old arctic silver better paste then their Grey stuff?

Oh yea the ips 60hz with G sync no longer has g sync according to Nvidia control panel even after system restore

 

Hello,

I'm new here on forum. In the near future I'm planning to buy AW15 R3 1070 and i have few question considering it.

1. Is it safe to buy AW15 R3 in KabyLake config. I mean is the problem with the heatsink resolved? Are the temperatures on CPU core safe to long term usage. I will porobalbly use it for few years.
I also assume that repasting it is still a necessity.

2. Is the 120hz TN 1080 screen worth upgrading or i'ts better to stay with IPS for better value for money.

3. Is there any sense in upgrading RAM to 2666hz 16gb in the configurator or do it by myself with G.Skill Ripjaws 2x8 gb 3000hz, and if yes is this RAM a good choice for swapping ?(I haven't done any ram switches in laptops before but i assume its not that hard.)

At last is it a good choice for a laptop that will be my daily driver as a some sort of desktop replacement. I study and work and 3 days a week i stay in different cities so i cannot have desktop PC. I'm planning to use it for a few years, 3-4 maybe more so is the AW15 R3 a futureproof choice. Should i look at any different machines ?

 

How long is the lead time for you? I am really hoping the parts shortage is not as bad as I have heard people say it is.

 

1) Read the comments about temp http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-15-R3-Notebook-Review.196584.0.html
3) I don't think 3000MHz ram will work.

 

I have been very happy with my G-Sync 120hz TN panel, but if you are not playing tons of fastmoving games, the better viewing angles on the IPS screen may be more important to you. That being said, I have seen more lightbleed issues on the IPS panels vs the TN panels, so its up to you.

The really nice aspect of the Alienware 15 is the great layout, access, and quantity of M.2 slots. So adding SSD would be the best investment in my opinion. I upgraded to the fastest memory in mine, but the difference is not very noticeable. A waste in my opinion unless you get a kick out of benchmarking. Real world benefit is not worth it in my opinion.

I cannot comment on heat with the KabyLake, but I bought the 4 year warranty, so if the CPU burns out, I get a new one anyway till late 2020, so I could care less. I also love fact I can add a new video card externally to this thing down the road as Nivida comes out with faster cards, and VR gets better.

 

Just got a 15r3 delivered yesterday. 7820hk, 1070, 120hz, 16GB, 512gb SSD and 1tb hdd. It's replacing a 6 year old Clevo P170HM3 with a GTX580 and a desktop with a 4790k and Titan X. Older Titan X not the new pascal. I picked up the graphics amplifier as well and threw the Titan X in there for now. I knew when I bought the amp that the Titan X would probably be a little worse than the 1070, but it's great just for the ease of docking IMO. One cable and both my monitors, keyboard, mouse, MFP, and external HDD dock are all connected. Very convenient. I'll replace the Titan next generation. I'm fine with it for now. They are only about 200 points apart in the 3dMark Time Spy test. The amp is actually what sold me on finally getting my first Alienware. I travel quite frequently for work so it will be very convenient to have one system to use at home and on the road instead of always swapping files, game saves, etc between two devices.

 

arrives on the 17/3/17 im hoping too ha!

 

I've been having weird results with undervolting+overclocking the 1070 on my R3. It seems GREATLY reducing the core clock, doesn't really offer much performance decrease. But then it gets a little confusing. Undervolting alone, 1700 clock and 0.800 resulting in slightly better Heaven scores VS stock. But then, undervolting to 0.800 while GREATLY reducing Core Clock and Greatly increasing Mem clock, resulted in a pretty nice boost. Haven't tested for full stability yet but here are the results.

1600 core, 0.800V-
FPS:
86.4
Score:
2177
Min FPS:
22.3
Max FPS:
179.4

Stock-
FPS:
87.8
Score:
2212
Min FPS:
25.5
Max FPS:
180.7

1700 core, 0.800V-
FPS:
88.1
Score:
2220
Min FPS:
25.1
Max FPS:
185.6

1700 core, +265mem, 0.800V-
FPS:
87.7
Score:
2208
Min FPS:
27.3
Max FPS:
168.6

1600 Core, 500Mem, 0.800V-
FPS:
89.7
Score:
2260
Min FPS:
19.8 (possibly due to too high memory resulting in a decrease? Or maybe due to one of the many background programs running)
Max FPS:
200.7 (ignore this 200, the 'score' is what matters, the max is inconsistent, usually around 186)


I guess this is a bit confusing, cuz I don't show how much is subtracted from the Core. It's 1600 Across the whole voltage curve. That could mean -400 at one point and -300 at another, too many changes to list

1500 core, +700mem, 0.800V (Micron memory)
FPS:
89.8
Score:
2263
Min FPS:
23.1
Max FPS:
194.8

 

How can you oc +700memory with Micron ones ?
And side of it, undervolting your gpu ?

 

Well undervolting the gpu may be a way to save battery life in gsync units I guess...

 

Lol, yeah thanks, i'm pretty sure everyone know that
It's not the question here

But how can he undervolt is the question?

Because from what we knew this morning there wasn't bios mod for pascal cards

EDIT : thanks to @pathan421id i discovered ctrl + f

So yeah ok you can undervolt it....

 

Idk the specifics. My guess is it takes more voltage to increase the Core clock than it does to increase the Memory clock. I both ran Heaven twice and went ingame RE7 for a little while, it was fine and did show improvement. However, I prefer lower temps and Idk how reliable +700 on a laptop is for daily use. Though I would assume it would generate less heat than the Core, since memory chips are usually much cooler from when I've worked with Desktop GPUs

 

Hi Guys

I need some advice please, I have recently received my alienware m15 r3 and I've been reading through various forums about the overheating and the screen issues hoping I didn't get that issue.

Unfortunately I got exactly that, My laptop hits 92c with core 1 on 6820HK without any overclocking and what i can tell it seems it has a strategic conservative boost of only around 3.2-3.3ghz.

I did try oc profile 1 which made Dayz standalone playable but after i hit wow for 10 minutes i hit 96c core 3 with performance fan on max which I wasn't happy with.

I purchased the 1080p 60hz IPS panel and 3 corners considerable have lightbleed which blacks are grey in those corners. This is a scratch and dent model from the EU/UK factory outlet and I am wondering if I want to get this repaired do I wait till after the 14 days to get this flagged or do i raise it before 14 day return and hope they don't just offer a full refund because I really like this product and got a decent price.

I was just going to repaste myself as i have been an alienware owner before and did on my m11x with noctua NT-H1 with great results but I don't think I can live with the light bleed.

Also what boost clocks does everyone see on their gtx1070's I get 1886mhz max and it never goes over 70c which seems like a good chip to lose?

 

I dont have problems with CPU temperature, but the screen has (admittedly minor) lightbleed. Dell came to replace the screen and the engineer said that AW laptops seem to have more than average issues with lightbleed?! Anyway, he replaced the screen and to my eyes in a bright room, it looked fine (though we both agreed light bleed in the bottom left corner). I let him leave, then I took the laptop into a dark room. The screen was WAY WAY worse than my original - almost more light bleed than not. So i literally hurdled the laptop and ran after the engineer. Asked him to put the old screen back on. However he managed not to put the connector for the LED lights back together properly so that one of the Tron lights didnt work properly. So i had to remove the bezel myself and reconnect it! I also had to remind him to write another report for me to sign to say that he had to put the original screen back on. All in all, pretty shocking. However, I think screens are a massive lottery and mine is minor enough not to worry about it - just annoying. Will go back to dell and see what else they can offer me. Still within the 14 day period but this is my second system and dont want to set up another laptop (would be 3 in 3 weeks!)

 

How does Grizzly Kyronaut perform? How does it compare to LM?

Hey guys,

So I decided to repaste my stock 17R4 (#3 unit) with Grizzly Kyronaut to see what it can do and the results will surprise you. My main goal was to collect data on the temps over extreme usage. (OC, Benches, Extensive Gaming etc...)

First of all, this unit was one of the early batches so the heat sink was just a nightmare. It didn't suffer from the horrific 20C+ temp differential even when it was stock, but still, as you can see the temps are terrible, but wait, according to dell (anyone have that link to that Dell page?) 100C is within reason. *Barf* Seriously right?

Secondly, it did take some work to get it right, although it was okay after reassembling it again the first time, by my OCD wanted it as perfect as possible without having to head to the shop like I usually do to balance the heat sink, so this was all done just on my desk at home.

I've just finished up so I'll post a lot more data later, but for now, here are some screenies as an appetizer.

Interesting note, but not surprising:

+ The GPU actually runs cooler (so far) than LM by about 3C-4C. Again, so far... - My GPU on my LM'ed 17R4 after heavy gaming peaks at 57C.

+ I did a little PCH mod and the temps have dropped ~8C as well. (I've used a 1.5mm copper shim with fujipoly 11.0's to hold it in place and with a little tweaking the under black cover sits perfectly on top of it to hold it in place. It's nice and snug and it won't go anywhere.)

+ The CPU temps seem to be very close to LM...Before I make any official statement let me run some more tests and I'll report back.

_________________________________

BEFORE: After Playing Overwatch


AFTER: Playing Overwatch


AFTER: Fire Strike Stress Test


wPrime: First Run right after reassembly.


CUSTOM PCH MOD: So far it's dropped the temps ~8-10C. It's still early so I'll more a more concrete temp data shortly...


Disclaimer: You may be thinking...with these temps using traditional paste, we could be onto something here eh? Well, it's going to take a lot more than just repasting. The whole process has to be treated like you're doing LM + HS mod / fix + etc...

 

Would you think

usinf

Would you think a hot glue gun would work better to hold it in place. I mean you can spread a layer around the edges to seal it to the mofo board and the Copper shim to give it a nice seal. Plus the glue can be easily taken off when your need it be removed.

 

I had thought that it would need more than the pressure from the cover to secure it, but it doesn't. Personally, I wouldn't hot glue it as sealing it could possibly do more harm than good by insulating it. The only way hot gluing it would be beneficial IMO is if the copper is making direct contact with the PCH die.

 

@iunlock: You used LM before repasting to Kryonaut right? How did it go to 97C?

 

Nono, I own multiple units. This is a completely different unit from my LM'ed one.

 

@iunlock:
You ordered new system to check if Dell fixed HSF issue? A second ago, I saw MSI Titan Pro as your primary machine, what happened to it?

 

Hi,

Thanks for reply

What country did you buy this in? Was it off the outlet or full price purchase?

Thanks

 

Do you need to do any heatsink/ thermal pad replacement on 15" model? I was thinking about it myself if dell don't sort me out

 

Yes.

::iunlock::

 

Okay. Well maybe like 4 spots around the Cooper shim to keep it from moving even though the cover holds it in place for added security for people who travel with it so it doesn't even move

 

I've tried that when testing it and although it wouldn't hurt....



....I was able to secure it another way where it won't move at all.

 

Isn't there a chance this could slightly increase the GPU/CPU temps? I mean, if the PCH was close to reaching damaging temps Dell themselves (hopefully) would have did something similar. But isn't this connecting another 40-50C processor to the already seemingly inadequate (until repaste) HSF?

OR: Does the lower temps of the PCH, also result in cooler air being circulated throughout the MOBO and heatsink resulting in lower temps for the CPU/GPU?

 

A lot can happen in one second in a 4 Ghz world

 

Not first time Dell skipped PCH cooling Alienware-throttles-to-078-ghz
Dell skipped PCH cooling in their AW models when they went with soldered hardware.

 

>_>. I wonder how a company can be so idiotic sometimes. I guess the very large majority, won't cause throttling due to the PCH at least for the HQ's. But with higher temps on the X820K's, seems like it should be mandatory

 

It is possible to have low PCH chips temperature without use of heatspreader. But the internal design (air flow) must be adapted to this.

 

Bought it in the UK in outlet. However immediately before buying this one, i returned one i bought brand new which also had lightbleed issue (minor in both instances). For a laptop that was over £2k, i was refusing to accept that as acceptable though. Coupled with outlet having the same spec machine with half the ram (16gb) for £600 less made my choice a lot easier.
Will live with the light bleed issue i think, but may chance another "repair" to replace the screen to see if it gets any better

 

Just received my laptop from outlet today (Alienware 15 r3 with 6700HQ/1070 spec) and stress testing the laptop as I heard it have heat issues (I know, that's a big understatement).

I run Prime95+ with small FFT, the temp peaks at about ~80 degrees C with the core variation from core 1 to 4 not exceeding 7-8 degrees, however my CPU throttles down to roughly 2.8ghz, is that the infamous heat issues that is mentioned here and should I look to get someone in Dell to fix it?

 

Na, it's the infamous Power Limit throttling.

If you can't increase the Power limits, to have better performance you must use less Power. Silly isn't it ?
That's the way NVidia and Intel make silicones these days. (Sigh !)

Try undervolting your CPU and GPU, you'll be suprised by the results.

 

looking to purchase an 15 r3 and wondering if i should spend the money on the 120hz upgrade. is it worth it? any advice would help with this decision. thanks

 

I have the 120Hz screen. For whatever reason I see a huge difference in 144 vs 120. I prefer my laptop hooked up to my 144hz monitor. So imo I wish I saved the money and battery life with just going with 60hz on the laptop.

Tl;dr: imo get 60Hz and buy a 144Hz for a little more than the cost of the 120Hz

 

appreciate the quick response! i'm looking at a unit with the folowing specs:

i7-7700hq
1070 gtx
8gb ram
60hz screen

for roughly $1500. is this a good price or should i look elsewhere? thanks again.

 

Looks like the 120Hz screen now is an IPS model. I am going to cancel my current order and snag one of them. The EDD is ironically around the same time.

 

i just placed an order for the following:

I7-6700hq
120hz TN panel
1070 gtx
8gb ram
128gb ssd + 1tb hd

with the 15% dell discount bonus and 10% ebates it came out to roughly $1300 inclusive of tax. i wonder how much better the IPS 120ghz panel will be?

CSHawkeye - did you also place an order using the dell discounts?

 

Where did you get that 15% off bonus discount?

 

follow this thread. a bit of trial and error but i eventually got a 15% off code.

https://slickdeals.net/f/9817315-al...m-2-1x8-ddr-4-ram-1920x1080-ips-as-low-as-934

*forgot to mention the code is good for all alienware laptops, not just the 13.

*UPDATE: looks like codes have run out. i have a few 10% off codes if interested and looking to buy off the dell consumer website.

 

I wonder what the specs of this new 120hz ips are. Did they make any announcement about this anywhere, how do we know this is for real and not a mistake?

 

Hmm just did a similar config for the 120Hz and its almost $325 more then what I paid. Not sure if that is worth the upgrade. Thoughts?

 

what is your current configuration?

 

7820HK, 16GB Ram, 1080p 60Hz G-Sync Screen, 256GB SSD (Plan to put in a 1TB instead) + 1TB HDD, Windows 10 Pro.

 

Good day all.
I just purchased the laptop with 8gb of 2400 ram 370-ACRZ. I am looking to buy some more ram. what should I get? One 8 gb or one 16 gb? which is the best brand for the ram on this laptop? I dont want to lose the 2400mhz

 

Depends on what processor you choose. You have choices. If you choose fully locked i7. Yes, then it's your own fault. It is you who decides what chip you want. Not Intel

 

Thank you, glad to hear it isn't a fault on my laptop.

As a new Alienware 15 owner I am a bit lost on what else I need to check, so if the temp is fine what else should I check within the 15 day return period? I am flying out on the weekend so only got a day or two to complete all test to ensure the laptop is good to go.

 

Ports
Temp cpu gpu at idle, video, gaming
Fan curve
Battery all way to 10%
Performance for Discrete/optimus if present
Dead pixel, screen bleed
Keyboard and led lighting

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks tlprtr19, will do a few test tonight and send some screenshots for the experts here to look over, what do you mean by Fan curve?

I have done the dead pixel test using jasonfarrell.com/misc/deadpixeltest.php and it looks fine, there's some screen bleed on the bottom and will take a picture tonight, not sure whether that's significant or not as I heard all laptop have screen bleed one way or the other.

What's the best test for gaming? I heard BF1 is great but I don't own it and wouldn't download in time with my crappy ADSL connection in 1 day. Is 3dmark still helpful for testing the GPU?

I probably should have done more research before the purchase, kind of jumped in quickly when I saw a good deal pop up on the outlet store.

 

How fast and whether the fan spin based on the task load. The fans should automatically spin high under gaming load for example. You can also look at temps at max fan speed (if you have a manual switch on ur keyboard)

BF1 is good. I use crysis and cities skylines. They stress both cpu and gpu. I use msi afterburner and riva tuner to monitor temps on screen while gaming at 1080p ultra.

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