*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

To be honest, I think you're more than fine. An overclock and less than 90? That's great. I'm also at 4 GHz but getting about 91 and even then that's okay. I did find that turning off speedshift in Throttlestop and keeping only speedstep on lowered temperatures a fair bit (was 97 max before). Maybe that will give you even better thermals? Dunno but did for me.

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I already am using only speedstep, haven't enabled speedshift through throttlestop.
So the temps are okay? Good to hear!
So then it's not worth getting a replacement just because of the light since temps are obviously of a higher priority. Do you have any idea about the keyboard throttle I have? It's a couple of posts back, would be great if you can have a look!

PS: Just wanted to know the norm of saying OC at 4Ghz means that running all cores at 4Ghz right? just clearing things so that I am on the same page as everyone

 

Enable speedshift and set it to 0 and see how much temps fare? Try 41x and you should be on 4GHz.
I summer season you must switch to stock clocks otherwise it'll be on 95C if your ambients are over 40C.
If you're unsatisfied with the repair demand a replacement and sometimes Dell fixes some hardware issues w/o communicating to anyone. You might have seen couple of threads saying a full replacement fixed thermal throttling and temps are below 70C.

 

It's just that I can't make a decision about playing the refurbished laptop lottery after having my temps sorted for 4ghz. is it worth the hassle?
and about the temps being 70degrees that's on stock clocks so far from the posts that I have seen. and my system is also behaving the same for stock clocks

 

For me your laptop isn't working fine and the repair isn't satisfactory because AlienFX isn't working and has some odd issues with keyboard as well!
If you're fine with the machine you can close your case! It all depends on what are your viewpoint or POV for a working machine that you paid. Also keep in mind after warranty is over, if the repair and parts are faulty from dell you need to pay from your pocket. Even extended warranty may not be honored by Dell India and they will cancel the warranty if you have the same issue with your mobo/heatsink/keyboard/screen.
All I can suggest is to get a new replacement w/ 6 months extra warranty offered by Dell to make up for their inconvenience caused to you when you paid close to 5000$ on top of the line AW 15 just for better warranty process in India.

 

its just gonna get worse, this is winter time everywhere, so even my repasted ones runs @ 58c max on 980M and 6700HQ on full 3.1 Turbo 4cores, the same will be different on march - august.. it will reach to 66C on GPU, that much of difference you will see on cooling side.. if u still have problem there is no reason for you to stay quiet, you can call them back and ask them to fix the rest of issue, the keyboard one is mind bog, ask them to replace board and keyboard once again. if not tell them you need a replacement, or ill file a case.

 

Thank you for your replies, I have escalated the issue to the dell services director and they have told me to send them my invoice to process a request for replacement, although they told me that a replacement laptop isn't guaranteed and if they will replace it, it will he be with a refurbed one.
I personally don't like the idea of getting a refurbed laptop after paying a high price but let's see what they offer me.
I kinda got into a bit of an argument too with the rep since he was getting aggressive and I was done playing ball and pushed hard to escalate and process the replacement.
the replacement would take upwards of 20 days to ship from their end so that's something to deal with too.
As for the extended warranty, I'll push for it once they get back to me about the replacement.
any chance of me getting a 15r4? like pay the price difference and get a new r4?
should I ask for that if they offer me a refurb 15 r3?

 

Even the replacement you were provided are refurb too? Does it perform like normal or not?
I think vicky or judal57 said items marked as refurb are just to save some part inventory cost or something.
They usually employ these scare tactics to tell people they're getting refurb and actually its not a refurb. Complete system replacement is quite expensive for Dell and most of the time they prevent or avoid it.
Get the replacement w/ 6 month warranty extension w/o any cost.
17 r5 or 15" counter-part are deprecated or EOL'ed and A51M along with m15/m17 have taken the place. So in both cases SW and HW support will be more or less same.

 

Yeah, all the parts I got were marked refurbed and they performed similar/worse than what I currently had on my system. The only difference being that the heatsink that I had replaced allowed me to stay OC'd at 4ghz all cores under 90 degrees during gaming. So that's that, other than that all parts were returned by me to dell. Only, the screen,keyboard and heatsink have been retained by me across a span of the three services

 

90% of the times its new, but mostly pulled from showrooms, or from some online stock.. even they said its gonna be refurb on my one, it was brand new, yes like you said.. its for reducing import taxes on new system.. its too much.. just accept for refurb and see how it goes.. if u still want to try only swapping then its ur call.. but to be honest. its more of like design fault.. no matter how new the system is, it might still throttle.. but may be ur keyboard issues will be fixed..

 

Yeah I'll be going forward with the replacement then. Wondering what configuration I'll be getting though since R3 is now two revisions old ~1.5years

 

you might get one revision, the latest one is m15 its the slim one and newer RTX 2060.. you can try if they have it here. im not sure though.. for me i forced them to give me R2 after i had Two new R1s

 

Should I demand what Revision I have or wait for them to send me a config?
Won't demanding a specific config be a red flag?

 

Lets see what dell will offer.
Vicky changed mobos like 10-20 times.

 

What was your ambient temps when hitting those CPU temp numbers?

 

~15-20 degrees

 

So I am going to be moving away from Alienware. I've been very happy with my 15 R3 (despite all the repairs and exchanges, at least they were under warranty) with i7-7820HK and 1070 with 120Hz display. It's been a fantastic laptop that finally has its thermals in a good place with a -120mV undervolt. However, I wanted something a little more portable. The M15 is terribly gaudy in my opinion so I looked elsewhere. Looked at MSI, Razer, Gigabyte, Asus, Acer, etc but all of them were quite expensive with the RTX-series cards.
Instead, I've ordered a Lenovo Y740 with RTX 2070 Max-Q and it worked out to less than $2k CDN after taxes and ebates. It has everything that I want: per-key RGB lighting, i7-8750H, 256 GB NVMe drive with 2.5" HDD, 144Hz IPS panel with Dolby HDR, thin and light (4.8 lbs), and a quality aluminum construction. I'm really looking forward to this laptop as it is one that has slipped under the radar it seems.
I will miss Alienware for sure, but this generation is just not for me. I started out with the m11x, had the Alienware 17 R1, Alienware 14, Alienware 17 R2, and finally my Alienware 15 R3 as my swansong. I was contemplating the Dell G7 but so far it is only available in Canada with a 60 Hz panel. I will still keep an eye out on Alienware though and perhaps the next generation of m-series laptops will be better!

 

I look forward to reading about this one!

 

Really wish I got the 120hz display instead of the 60 on my laptop. Didn’t think I would notice that much of a difference from my desktops monitor

 

Once you go high Hz, you don’t go back.

 

Edit: sorry Bob didn't realize I was replying to you!

 

Word of warning, if you got a faulty webcam module in these laptops, becareful. My webcam module started burning and killed my whole laptop.

 

i've noticed a NEW BIOS version from february 25, 2019, version 1.6.0 . Is it safe/better to install it ??? Im going to extract the file and run the .exe, if you say it is better

 

Hello, I recently purchased this used laptop with the following features: i7-7820HK - GTX 1080 Max Q - 256 GB SSD - 1TB HDD - 16 GB RAM. Won at auction for 1075 USD. What do you think? I made a good purchase? Thanks

PD: I currently have my signature laptop.

 

Hey guys,

which pad size do i need for repadding my 15r3 ?

 

Anyone know good tools to clean an inside of a computer? Opened up my laptop to find out it's not as clean as I would liked.
Also would like to know what to use to clean the palm rest and keyboard.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Metro-Vacuum...e=UTF8&qid=1514406175&sr=8-2&keywords=datavac

Buy quality liquid including cloth for this type outside cleaning (palm rest and keyboard).

 

Has anyone tried this bios 15_R3_17_R4_1.7.0.EXE ? if yes how is it?

 

Seems to be fine to me.

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Anyone having an issue with AlienFX not working after reinstall of AW CC? I’ve followed the guidelines of uninstalling, deleting the folders and deleting the registry keys before reinstall. I’ve also pulled the battery and did the PRAM reset, but the issue still persists.

 

has anyone managed to hook up an Oculus Rift S to the 15 R3 ? im looking at getting one, but at £399 in the UK,, im tentative as apparently it needs a dedicated display port, i know the R3 has a HDMI and min DP port, just dont wont to blow that kinda money if its a fail before i even get started,

 

Hi everyone, I bought a secondhand AW 15 R3 and it has really bad heat problems and I don't know what to do anymore.

Here are the specs:

core i7 7700hq
GTX 1070
15.6 inch fhd GSYNC Panel
16gb ddr4 ram
256gb m.2 nvme + 1tb 2.5hdd


the problem:

Both CPU AND CPU are experiencing dangerous high temps during load. Before repaste CPU would go as high as 96 degree Celsius while GPU would go as high as mid 80's degrees (this was during a GPU stress test via Furmark, and yes the CPU heats up too for some reason)

What's weird is when I use Furmark to stress test the GPU, the CPU temp also heats up and it even has a higher temperature than the GPU. Do take note that there is not much load on the CPU but it's heating up so bad.


Remedies I have tried:

-undervolt cpu to -0.160mv via intel XTU
-undervolt gpu to 0.75v via msi afterburner curve profile
-repaste gpu and cpu to thermal grizzly conductonaut



After the remedies I did, I am still experiencing extremely high temps. These were my temps during a run of Furmark once again after approximately 10 minutes:





after closing furmark:







At this point I really don't know what to do. I would appreciate your help!!

 

Furmark is a power virus, keep using it and you will kill your GPU...

Load your GPU with some realistic benchs, not with furmark..

 

Here is a 5 minute play of PUBG.



something seems really wrong with this laptop

I tried using another program. I used OCCT's GPU 3d test.



There is no load at all with the CPU but anytime I run a graphics intensive app which would generate heat for the GPU, the CPU follows and gets heated up too. I can also feel my keyboard area being extremely hot.

Perhaps the problem is with the unified heatsink? Is this a common issue with the aw15 r3 model you think?

When I tried running a CPU intensive program like Prime 95 and choosing smallest FFTS test, the CPU temp is heating up just fine with temps of just up to 76 degrees Celsius while the GPU is pretty much not affected and it seems quite cool at 54 degrees.

If it is a unified heatsink issue, the gpu should heat up the cpu and vice versa?

 

Yeah, the well known TRIPOD Heatsink Mess.

The Ugliness with Unified Heatsink.

 

The TRIPOD heatsink mess is about the uneven core temps right?

That's something I've e long accepted but what's weird to me is my GPU while on load(running gpu app such as furmark) is causing my CPU temps to go high and even higher than the GPU but when I do the same with my cpu (running prime 95)load temps, the GPU seems fine.

 

Never run Furmark. Rather test with this setup!

GPU will always get cooling priority with Unified heatsink in an so called gaming-book. But from what I can see... Gpu is hotter than normal for this model.

 

Hi thanks for the tip.

I did what you told me and these are the results:

 

Thanks. More as expected. If you replaced Stress Gpu test in Aida64 with Heaven 4.0 benchmarks (Stress FPU + Heaven) I expect the GPU temp will increase and throw out more heat on Cpu. Only fix is new quality thermal paste and be sure the thermal pads is in correct thickness. I would replace pads with newer from Gelid/Arctic.

 

Hi, I already replaced my thermal paste with thermal grizzly conductonaut and I also replaced my thermal pads with k5 pro vicious thermal paste for thermal pad when I showed those results. Should I replace my thermal pad? I do have some arctic lying around

 

from what I understand... You use K5 Pro instead for thermal pads. This means that thermal pads can't be the problem child (too thick/stiff thermal pads will raise the heatsink off the die). But thick paste as K5 Pro instead for pads won't do that. I would repast as this seems as a thermal paste problem. Could also be a warped/uneven heatsink. Maybe do a repaste with a soft thermal paste, screw down properly, then open up again afterwards to check how the paste spread. If it looks good, do the final applicatin of new paste/liquid metal and pads/K5 Pro.

 

Hi, before repasting with Condoctonaut, I repasted it first with Gelid extreme gc pro but it was still overheating, that's why I changed to conductonaut and still same result.

I'm starting to think it can be a warped heat sink i'm afraid

 

Either warped or some heatpipe is faulty.

 

Try it with a copper shim

 

How is overclocking in these things? Thinking about selling my 13 R3 and getting one of these in its place...

Particularly, the 7820hk / 1080 Max Q variant. Worth pursuing over the 17 R4?

 

Hi all,
I have a Alienware 15 r3 with i7 7700hq gtx1060 and is still on BIOS SKL1.1.9_KBL1.1.9, 1.1.9. I wanted to get advice on how to update the bios to the latest version. Should I just update straight away from bios SKL1.1.9_KBL1.1.9, 1.1.9 to bios 1.8.0? or Should I update one by one until I get to the latest version? or Should I skip some bios version that are dodgy that anyone knows of?
Thanks in advance.

 

You can do it directly. Put the exe file in USB drive and use Dell BIOS Flash update from F12 menu to do safe upgrade or downgrade.

 

PS4 controllers disconnect after a few seconds with new Qualcomm QCA61 drivers! Anyone else with this problem?

 

Is it possible to force downgrade from 1.7.0 to 1.3.0?

 

New BIOS is out 1.9.0, I have flashed it and the microcode has updated to D4 from CC.

Undervolt still available for my 6820HK as its unlocked, not sure for non-k CPU's.

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D4 is old and at that time D6 was newer but 2 days ago Intel released DA.