*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

I'm guessing that right now might not be the best time to buy a new Alienware laptop unless you go bargin hunting as there should be new ones comming out quite soon, right? The current generation must be about 1,5 years by now.

 

Due to Coffe Lake-H CPUs (for mobile) delay, AW official statement was, that they are not expecting new AWs for 4-5 months, and it was in December (?) or November, still, we need to wait for Intel. I'd say if you are going for gaming only, I7 will still be the champ (7700HQ) and it will rocks for atleast 2 years from now, so IN MY OPINION if you can get a good deal, I'd go for it.
Lisa Gade from mobiletechreview also agrees with this (check her YT channel)
In the end it all goes about price. Just dont rush, search for good spec and price and go ahead.

 

The previous gen was around for 2 2.5 years. It all depends on the release schedule of nvidia and intel.

 

You can tweak dGPU to use P5 state so as to get longer battery runtimes say 4-6hrs.

 

So what are people using for their settings in order to get a smoother experience?
For ThrottleStop I have C1E disabled, SpeedShift on, SpeedStep on, undervolt -0.089V, OC to 4.0GHz (40,39,38,37, which I also changed on BIOS) and +185 core, +135 mem on After Burner. Makes for gaming on Ultra in most games that is decently smooth but not buttery (Firestrike at 13,961) but temperatures never exceeding 76*C maximum even after gaming on GR Wildlands on Ultra for 2 hours.
If I want buttery smooth, Then all defaults, with same OC settings or slightly higher at 4.1GHz (Firestrike at 15,469) but temperatures are at 95*C maximum. There seems to be a little bit of a trade-off with quality, or longevity and decent temperatures.

 

I definitely wouldn't buy the i7 7700HQ for future proof gaming. It's already throttling cards like the 1070 and 1080. The 7820HK is the best option for sure!

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Which CPU and GPU do you have?

 

7820HK and 1070.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

 

Hmm I dont agree with that. I have yet to see any card being bottlenecked by a 6700 or 7700HQ

 

How would you tell? I've run side by side comparisons of both the 7820hk and 7700hq with the GTX 1070 and 1080. Clocked at 4.3 GHz the 7820 smashes the 7700 in benchmarks and game tests. It's nearly a GHz more and that makes 10 to 20+ FPS difference (depending on game) on both cards. And this is right now, in 2 or 3 years time this will likely be even more

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

I tested my desktop 1070 (2.2ghz GPU core speed) in my desktop and AW15 R2 and the card gave me almost identical scores for both systems. Also the GPU was never under utilized, like lets say 100% cpu and 70% gpu but always a full 100% gpu usage. Extra CPU speed does help but thats because the game/AI/physics logic can run faster ofcourse. at least thats from my testing.

 

That's a valid point and one I should have also made

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Hello everyone. I am looking into buying a 15r3 with 7820hk 1070 512ss. Anways has anyone here had an issue with warranty or issues with theirs in general? Im going to be searching the forum on here for alot of different things. I have a gigabyte aero 15 that is still in the return period but I am not sure if i want to keep it or not. My only hold up on the 15r3 is the weight and a bit of the size. The aero 15 has some small quirks that just bug me but do not affect how it runs. Also I heard that the battery life on that model 15r3 is not the best while just web browsing. Does anyone have a work around for this. Other people are claiming 3-4 hours at best on wifi. Alienware claims more. Some people complain about the 7820 heat issues. Is there a work around for this also?

 

I get about 5 hours with max brightness on the 7700hq version. But this is with a lot of tabs open etc. I think i could reach u hours with some tweaks. For example let the cpu run at max 35% which would equal to max 15 watts on cpu.

 

Disable turbo, speedstep and c1e. Enable Speedshift with EPP set to 200 and you can get another hr of runtime with dGPU.
I was able to pass Dell's advertised battery life of 10.5 hrs by an hour or two, if I switched to ethernet on 15 r2.
I managed 11.5hrs or 12 hrs with 30% still left. BS can increase the battery life by 30mins to 60 mins.

 

Nice, good tips!

 

Can this only be done in bios? If so getting a lower spec laptop seems easier.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

I don't think some options like HWP and C1E are exposed in Dell Stock BIOS so use ThrottleStop.

 

Mine came without the SATA cable for the 2.5" drive bay, but they accepted that they'd made an error and rushed one to me - there were also no screws or drive carrier hardware but I had that stuff anyway from another laptop.
It's possible Dell/Alienware will send those out, if you ask nicely!?! I might be getting the "Premium Care" treatment...?!

 

The panel quality is actually the reason for wanting the 4K, not that I care for 4K on a 15" really.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

What I mean is kind of that if it is to much hazzel to switch, it seems unlikely that anyone would do it often, like battery conservative mode on the workday and then max power when gaming. Not sure what is the case here though.

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

Does that mean the 4K Panels are better now? In my R3 (late 2016) the color accuracy is atrocious. This is the first monitor that I have had that was actually so bad I had to go and adjust it myself.

 

I dunno if this is still a thing, but I ordered mine (7700HQ and 1070) by phone, and I specifically asked the Dell rep if they had non-gsync 1080p panels as an option. He told me it was an option, even though the site configurations don't show one. This was July 2017 though, dunno if that's still something they would do, but you could always call and ask. As far as I can tell, without the gsync panel, my model is running with optimus. General browsing, word docs etc. don't light up the gpu use indicator on the taskbar

 

Do you have the option to change the scaling in the Intel GPU properties? I know that with a 1060 or 1070 that's unlikely to be used for gaming but I used it sometimes and I've seen some notebooks with that option blocked on the driver level.
Is there any screen tearing without G-Sync? Honestly I've only seen it when running a demanging game on a low-end GPU, but other than that V-Sync does the job. Optimus is great for battery life and for light gaming. How is the IPS panel? Are you satisfied with it? I'm using an older Inspiron 7537 and it's working great for me and I don't think I would go to a TP, even a 120 Hz oone.

 

I bought 3 weeks ago a 15 R3 i7 7820HK, 1070, 16 GB and I love it. I'm a little concern about temps because yesterday I played Witcher 3 for about 2 hours (high settings and G-sync activated) and I had peaks at 93°C (never below 60fps) but average temps I think were good (75°C). I 'm arleady undervolt (-0.135). Do you think that made a repaste could help me to decrease max temps? Dell assistance told me that that temperaures are normal for that processor during games, so no warranty repaste. If you think repaste could help I'll do it myself.

 

It helps for sure. Are your core temps even? No large gaps between core 0 and core 1 for example? In that case it means your heatsink is one of the better ones and a good repaste should fix it and lower your temps a lot. It becomes problematic when you have a large core temp differential.

 

Average temps:
Core 0 : 73
Core 1 : 74
Core 2 : 72
Core 3 : 70

Max temps:

Core 0 : 91
Core 1 : 92
Core 3 : 87
Core 4 : 84

What do you think? Average temps seems ok between cores. Max surely not, but were peaks, so I don't know...

 

Its no tthe largest core differential I saw but not the smallest either. I still think a repaste would help a lot. When mounting the heatsink onto the board press the CPU heatsink down while screwing in the screw at screw hole NR 1 after that 2 and 3, after that fully tighten screw 1 and then 2 and 3.

 

Thank you, mext monday a Dell tech will come to my house for a wi fi issue. I already ask if is possible to pay him to do that for me. He said yes. I'm to scared to do that myself. I think Dell tech can do that without do a mess.

 

Intel's graphics panel show the scaling/fit/stretch options. I've only ever seen those blocked on my surface, normally you can just install another intel driver if those don't show.

I do get some occasional tearing, probably because I disabled v-sync and limited fps in nvidia inspector to 71 max. Before, when I let the 1070 run all out, it wasn't noticeable at all. The IPS is 60 htz and looks fine enough. Was using a MSI GS73 previously with 120 htz TN panel, and the colors are definitely better (though that was a great panel for a TN to be honest)
Optimus is the main reason I asked for non-gsync, without having the 1070 running all the time and a 99 wthr battery, I can leave the laptop in high performance settings with all the lights on and get ~7 hrs battery life doing normal work. If I turned on power saver or balanced and turned off the bling, probably ~9 I'd bet

 

Anyone had issue where their PSU stops working properly? Mine will randomly act up and the laptop goes into crisis mode, thinks it has an unsupported PSU, and throttles the CPU down to 800 MHz and wont charge the battery. The performance hit is very painful when this happens. When the PSU is on the fritz, it shows as Unknown in the BIOS vs 240w normally.

Noticed when it happens, XTU shows a thermal throttle flag. As soon as I unplug and run off battery the CPU jumps back up and performs much better. I have seen this happens during times of high load, and low load so no correlation there. I have my GPU at stock clocks and the CPU underclocked by 200 MHz at all loads and undervolted by .125V meaning the CPU never goes over 45W no matter what.

The XTU screenshot shows running on battery for the first half, and then i plug in and boom, CPU drops and thermal flag goes to yes all while the temps are clearly well managed and under control.

This happens intermittently and is a nightmare, after a day or two the PSU works normally again until next time it doesn't. I have a Dell 240W PSU that came with the laptop. Have not hooked up a kill-a-watt but probably need to. I have ordered a 330W to use when not on the AGA that will hopefully help alleviate this.

I have been going back and forth with Dell support but they have been considerably less helpful than in the past. At this point some parts are being sent out but I do not know if that means a new PSU, new Motherboard (meaning the whole dam laptop) or what.

 

I would imagine that quite a lot of people use 1070 for serious gaming, its a really good card also.

 

I think he meant that, with a 1060/1070, not a lot of people would be using the iGPU for gaming, since, as you said, the 1070 is a really good card.
Most of these will come with gsync anyway, so the igpu isn't even available, but since there was the option, yes, I can adjust the intel gpu scaling...

 

Hey guys, I somehow managed to get a replacement battery due to wear. What would be some good practices to prevent the battery becoming **** again? I know I must not let it die, nor keep it plugged in at full charge for too long, and also express charge disabled (set to "auto"). What else?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

Just done leave it dead for a while or in cold weather.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

They are sending new motherboard, power adapter, cooling stuff (since attached to motherboard). Way to waste money Dell! Fortunately I have not been overclocking so don't have to worry about getting less worthy silicon. Received the 330W PSU today, shows as 330W in bios and recognized, will let you guys know how it goes.

 

Keeping a lithium ion battery at max charge for long periods is one of the worst things for longevity. By simply limiting the charge to 80% or even 90% of capacity, you can significantly increase the life span. Unfortunately, Dell does not offer an option in the Alienware bios to limit the battery charge to a percentage of the total capacity like they do on their business line systems.

 

Its not that bad. Heat and cycles are worse.

 

I think the evidence might dissagree - cycles and temp do contribute but charge percentage is significant.:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

 

Interesting. I just put the Battery and it's at 3% wear, down from the 36% I had in the old one. I saw somewhere a script to keep the battery from going above 80% but I can't recall if it was here or in reddit

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

After heavy use of lappies on battery, allow it to be cooled down, I prefer an hr with PC switched off and then charging it won't increase wear level at all and allows longer shelf life.

 

They mainly talk about elevated temperatures combined with a higher voltage on the amount of cycles that battery lasts from what i saw while quickly skimming through the article?

But the battery wear that i did see for some users is abnormal though. Curious how long mine will last.

 

Umm no... Charging capacity is addressed:

Most Li-ions charge to 4.20V/cell, and every reduction in peak charge voltage of 0.10V/cell is said to double the cycle life. For example, a lithium-ion cell charged to 4.20V/cell typically delivers 300–500 cycles. If charged to only 4.10V/cell, the life can be prolonged to 600–1,000 cycles; 4.0V/cell should deliver 1,200–2,000 and 3.90V/cell should provide 2,400–4,000 cycles.

 

Thats what i was pointing at (totally fried after a long business trip).

It has effect on the amount of cycles it lasts but with current battery controllers it does not automatically turn in extra wear. Still want to see a max 80% charge option though.

 

Gotcha - my mistake. I completely agree on with the max charge option. For those of us that keep our systems plugged in, this would really help with longevity on the battery. Given that Dell does this on other systems, it should not he hard to implement on the Alienware line.

 

Yeah, even do it from factory like Apple and Samsung. They rate their batteries for 1000~2000 cycles just because they charge up to 80% while it shows as 100% in software. My old Samsung Ativ Book 8 which I bought in 2013 and which I gave to my mother still has only 15% battery wear after those 5 years and is still used daily.

 

Found the script. It's sadly not an actual limiter but just an alert, it will be useful nonetheless: https://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/get-alerts-when-your-laptop-battery-is-low-or-full/

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

I've had my battery mostly plugged in or sitting off at 100% for the past year and I'm still at 2%(13r3) wear that I had out of the box. I had similar results with my m14x r2, 92% after 5 years (haven't checked what the battery is now, been 7 years about).

 

try running a discharge cycle on the battery to 10% or so then charge it back up and see what the wear is.

 

I could try that, I have done that a few times over the year. I think my wear level is great.