*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

BIOS "updated" 16 march 2017 - still the same revision though.

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Alienware 15 R3/ Alienware 17 R4 System BIOS

Fixes & Enhancements

1. Alienware 15 R3 new Graphic controller support.
2. BIOS flash utility enhancement.
3. CPU and graphic performance improvement.

Version S1.0.12_K1.0.8, S1.0.12_K1.0.8

Release date

16 Mar 2017

Last Updated

16 Mar 2017

I wonder if they did any bug fixes?

 

Does anyone know the screw sizes for the heatsink? I want to try to have the heatsink lay as flat as possible and I am sure a couple screws will get stripped, so I'd rather have them ahead of time

 

Hey guys I have a MSI GT62 6RE that I bought from Amazon for about $1300. I saw the Alienware 15 R3 with a GTX 1070 going for about $1400 on eBay. I was going to return my MSI, and purchase the Alienware since it has a 120hz screen instead of the 60hz, it's not IPS but for gaming a TN panel is fine. It also has better ports since my MSI doesn't have a Thunderport port, and the HDMI is only 1.4, instead of 2 on the Alienware. Plus I sold my old Alienware that had a 980M for my 1070 MSI, and I loved my Alienware. I saw a lot of people were having issues with heating, and the g-sync screen. I redid the thermal paste on my MSI, and it's running so much cooler now, and I was wondering if anyone here had issues with their thermals? Did anyone redo the thermal paste? Should I take back the MSI, and buy the Alienware? It's refurbished so I'm not sure if it's going to have thermal/g-sync issues or not since it's not brand new, and part of the manufacturing process that may have addressed this.

 

MSI build quality is no comparison to Alienware R3.

 

Alienware heatsink design is no comparison to MSI GT62.

 

Got my 15r3 yesterday, 500gb SSD and 32gb ram are in the post. 120hz screen is smoother and brighter but I'm missing IPS when I compare it to my 17r2. Also the cooling is excellent so far, GPU stays below 70, CPU in the 70s even when playing Witcher 3 maxed out. I'll keep it till Monday before I make my final judgment but overall very impressed.

Also does anyone know if you can get 3rd party Gsync IPS panels from anywhere? I wouldn't mind switching displays myself if it's not too difficult.

 

Those are good temps you got there. Were they temps after extended load? So far your system is good, so why fix it . Enjoy the fun of 120Hz!

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

Yup, I was playing for an hour and a half or so. I'm pretty glad it isn't some overheating horror story!
I'm liking 120hz, but coming from my old machine, the colours are far less saturated and it's just a lot of getting used to. I wish alienware offered an OLED panel or 120hz IPS for the 15. Or even a glass panel like the touchscreens in the last gen

Although I'm liking the screen more after using notebook check's calibration file..

 

Yeah. You do not want to be in those horror stories . May be you could post few pics showing the difference btween the IPS and the TN displays if you get a chance. That will definitely help many users on this forum.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

Hi guys I just order my Laptop with this configuration
7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-7820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Overclocking up to 4.4GHz)
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit English
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 with 8GB GDDR5
DISPLAY
15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 60Hz IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits NVIDIA G-SYNC Enabled
Included in price

32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz (2x16GB)

1TB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)
Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

and I have a couple of questions
first did Dell fixed the hit issues?
in addition, do I need repaste CPU?
and Last dose anyone knows configuration for overclocking to 4.4?

 

I got my replacement on Tuesday Alienware 15 R3 7820HK with 1070 GTX+ 120Hz display! I I must say the heating issue is still at large! Core 1 and 3 are over 100 degrees! Under volting the cpu did not help very much! Called tech support today and after 2.5 hours of test after test I am getting the motherboard replaced! When will they get their act together?

 

The problem will continue as long Dell use the TRIPOD cpu heatsink design. @iunlock Someone whispered in my ear that the problem was solved @Galm

 

I received my replacement unit this morning, initally ordered a 6700 but they gave me a 7820HK upgrade for free. My initial order was on the 27th of November.. took times so I hope this one is a good unit ! I will run some test tonight and finger crossed..
The replacement unit is a 7820HK GTx1070 with the 120Hz panel

 

I am getting similar temps, in the 70's on ultra on Witcher 3. I think average for the hour was even less, 69. However, it was jumping to mid 70's throughout. It did max around 81, but only hit that once. An hour an a half of the game too. Some people are saying re-paste, and I am tempted, but I think those thermals are pretty decent and many who are hitting 90's would love to get those, so I'm leaning towards no re-paste for now I think.

 

I would be contended with 81. As long as you have a laptop cooler and you play at ambient/cool room temps your all set!

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

i've received my alienware 15 R3 with the following specs:

I7 - 6700HQ
16GB Ram
1070 GTX
120hz TN Panel

i'm in love with it and did a full repaste with liquid ultra on both the CPU and CPU and temps never go above 75C for the CPU and the GPU never breaks 65C. I highly recommend changing out the thermal paste.

i'm still running everything on the dell installed OS and apps. Have alot of you guys done clean installations after receiving your laptop?

 

Well this is kind of half true isn't it. I mean, not all of the Alienware laptops reach 100C. These were mine, without raising the back of the laptop (which would give another 5-10C lower temps):

7700HQ + 1070 (Dell Paste):
idle gpu - 50
idle cpu - 48, 49, 48, 48
load cpu+ gpu - 90, 89, 84, 84 gpu: 73

and that's OCCT + Heaven running twice. I forget if its with undervolt or not though. While not good by any means, both processors running @ 100% won't happen and it does leave room for temp increases. I'm in no way agreeing with the tri-mount, but its likely tri-mount + screwed up thermal pads which causes the 100C/crazy core differential. All it takes is 1-2 thermal pads to be slightly up too far and that will cause uneven heatsink

 

can anyone comment on their battery life with a 1070 and 120hz panel? with the large battery i'm still not impressed. my power settings are on balanced.

 

You can get about 5-6Hours browsing around the internet (edit: actually i'm using 2 SSD's and no HDD so mine should be a bit better). I haven't checked how much I'd get after undervolting the GPU a lot, but any type of video or game will use the GPU, which will likely use half or more battery than just browsing. Using pretty much 18W counting the CPU+GPU typing this, but running a video will increase GPU wattage from 10 to 30W

 

my battery life seems to decrease rather rapidly once i disconnect from a power source and i'm just browsing the internet, no gaming at all. i'd say i'm at about 3 hours or so give or take battery life doing just that. there is no way to switch to integrated graphics, correct?

 

If your panel has GSYNC, you can't switch to integrated. You should be able to mess around with some power settings, you don't have to have them all on battery saver but I also wouldn't use 'prefer maximum performance' for anything on battery.
You can undervolt your GPU pretty much like this (obviously could be better or worse, silicon lottery) - http://imgur.com/a/itAyR
And it'll still have basically the same performance as stock GTX 1070 (minimum and average framerates +- 1 to 2, max framerates could be like -20 around 140 from the test i've done

 

Did a clean install as soon as got it. Wasn't really bothered about the alienware command and changing the colours etc. Just downloaded the latest nvidia driver (not the dell one) and all the other drivers got updated from windows update directly.

Runs so much better now.

 

Turn on battery saver for few mins that will close unused background apps and then switch it off. If you throttleStop you can battery drain in terms of Watts by hitting the battery button twice which is beside TS bench.

 

i'll give ur suggestions a try. also do you guys use the tobii eye tracker feature? or disable it?

 

Yes Tobii is a battery drain. Redstone 2 will bring improvements to Win Hello and IR sensor. I use 15 r2.

 

Hi! I recently purchased an alienware 15 r3. Now my graphics card wont show up properly on the dxdiag. I have the 1060 skylake model. What should I do?

 

Does it show in the Device Manager or the system's BIOS? Check both places in case there is hardware malfunction with the video card.

 

It might just be that dxdiag thing. For whatever reason a few things report the GPU inaccurately. For example, some say mine have 3GB Memory, some say I use the Intel HD, etc. Is your system performing at GTX 1060 levels?

 

I think its optimus disabling gpu due to lower gpu usage. Just fire-up GpuZ and see if NV 1060 is detected. Also at bottom of GPUz you will scroll down menu, if you see NV 1060 then it is optimus switching to intel for superior power savings.

 

So I received my replacement comptuer 2 days ago. Initally ordered a 6700 with GTX1070 in November 2016. Unit was overheating, tech came by and totally ruined it, unusable computer.. Had to wait 3 months for my replacement, I got free upgrade to the 7820HK GTX1070 120Hz.

I tried OCC + heaven for 20 mins got 88-87-88-86.

One hour of Wither 3 max settings : 94-90-94-89 Those are max temps. Avg after an hour : 84-82-82-81

This is with undervolt of CPU to the max at -130Mv.

What do you guys think about it ?

I am not able to repaste it myself as I m a total newbie, and on top of that I was watching the tech guy working of my first unit, he had to dismount 3 times just to get it started and at the end the computer was ruined so I really dont want to do it myself.

 

If I have a Gsync model then that means I can never use integrated graphics... but what about if I want to use an Alienware Graphics Amplifier. I remember reading somewhere that means I can't display the external GPU on my internal screen which is fine (since I'd most likely be at my desk with a monitor) but can I still use dual screen/extend at least (i.e. the internal GTX1060 powering internal screen and the AGA for external)?

Also does anyone know what happens if you hook up an AGA without a graphics card inside? Would make a great port replicator... until 11 series GPU comes out.

 

Temps aren't normal for HK CPU, so if you're in the USA you can contact Team LHz for liquid metal paste or trad. paste service. If you've seen tech disassembling your laptop, then you do know, how to do it. Take your time in repaste and you'll feel a lot better.

 

So as long as it shows up on gpu-z theres nothing to worry?

 

Thanks for this answer. I'm not in the US but in Switzerland so I guess I ll have to repaste myself. I already have the Kryonaut thermal grizzly and arcticlean I now need some tools and to do some studies

Actually I still have my first unit, I will practice the repaste on this one before sending it back to Dell

 

Yes. You can also check for NV GPU in device manager too.

 

You can test it with running the render test in Gpu-Z.

 

From the video I saw on you tube - if you have a graphics amplifier with no monitor attached it will use the laptop monitor.

 

According to the video above - it seems like you can.

 

Anyone upgraded their BIOS to 1.012?

 

Tried to do this. When it rebooted into BIOS writing mode, screen turned off, fans speed increased to maximum and system got frozen. Luckily it happened before original bios was erased. So I decided to wait for next revision.

 

Just upgraded mine and it went smoothly - no issues. Did you turn of OC in the bios before you upgraded it?

Will test it later on with temps etc. and report back.

 

Hello!

This is my replacement unit, i7-7820HK with the GTX 1070.

Here is a 20 mins OCCT with Heaven running straight out of the box : http://i.imgur.com/E4tawVD.jpg

And this is the same test after repaste with an undervolt of -120mV : http://i.imgur.com/TYrWaZF.jpg

I was not happy with the repaste so I did it again and here is how the thermal paste looks after my 1st repaste (is it too much, too little ?) : http://i.imgur.com/EOfin2G.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AyA6RSQ.jpg

I'm a total newbie at repasting and I am not really happy with those temps as this is a replacement unit that I have been waiting for 3 months..
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to improve my computer.

Thanks !

 

The few people I've seen talk about it, basically have said its the worst driver available (causes games to stutter often)

 

Bend the third leg on TRIPOD. Read the thread. @iunlock

 

Thank you @Papusan for this I didn't know about this thread, I will read it and try to bend this arm.

Edit : Have you notice my temps difference after the repaste ? It is only 8 °C to the maximum, it seems that on that thread they are talking about 20°C more difference.
Will bending the arm reduce the temps also ?

Thanks again for your help

 

Had a quick go yesterday at running a game on 1.012 for over 1.5 hours - and had no issues - but need to run further tests.

 

I have done some readings and I might have done a mistake during my first repaste (see the results on my post above) . I have used the spreading technique to spread the thermal paste on the CPU and apprently this create bubbles..

So next week when I will take it appart again to bend the arm, should I use the peadrop method in the middle of the CPU ? Some says use the X shape method, any recommendations ? I use thermall grizzly

 

I bought one of these a while back :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ergonomic-Aluminium-Portable-Foldable-Notebook/dp/B007BD16KC

By using this and the Temps have gone down by 10°



This is using BIOS 1.0.12

Interesting.

 

Use line method on cpu and X on GPU as mentioned here: [Q] AW 17" R3 / AW 15" R2- Repaste now or wait until your warranty expires?