*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R2/R3 Owner's Lounge

had anyone tried repasting the 17 r2? need help.

 

Not yet, but I would love to see a dissasembly video. I want to repaste. For the time being though I would recommend an undervolt in XTU, try lowering your dynamic core offset by about 60MV and you should see lower temps.

 

I just got my paste now. and Looking at doing it. haha. but Im afraid it won't boot up after I disassemble. Farthest I've done it was on the picture I have posted.

 

Try to find the Dell Service Manual for your laptop. For my Alienware M17xR3 you could download the Service Manual from Dell which showed how to remove/replace certain parts. Here you go, I found it for you:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukdhs1/product-support/product/alienware-17-r2/manuals

(make sure you've got screwdrivers that fit properly, you don't want to strip screws)

 

I found the guts to disassemble my 17 r2, AGAIN. And successfully repasted. temps are not a lot better. Unfortunately, I wasnt able to do a video :S
New CPU Idle temps. Will test GPU later.

 

Splintah, very nice GPU score! Did you try to overclock Titan X, almost all the samples reach 1350/8000 on stock voltage

Could you also run FireStrike Ultra, please?

 

The thing is pure beast mode, it overclocks +200 on the core without breaking a sweat. I will run that later today (working from home).

 

The only time a re-paste will significantly lower your temps is if the stock paste was horrible, or if it's been a year or so since the last paste job was done.

 

How bad was the disassembly?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

notebookcheck has reviewed the top-end AW17 R2.
Seems like the 180w PSU was considered a problem for the CPU (obvious since we already know this), but what stunned me the most was the surface temps uinder load. Wow is that bad. Worse than the AW15.
It also lost a couple of points, and if it weren't for them, it could have scored 89%.

 

The surface temps are why I sold my first R2. I didn't have an infrared thermometer at the time, so I could only subjectively describe the temps (as seen in my review).

I now have a thermometer, and another R2 should be here by Monday. I'll then do my own tests.

Probably won't be as high as NBC's unit (since mine is the base version with the 970M and the 4710HQ).

That being said, those temps in the NBC review are appalling. To put it in perspective, have a look at how the Clevo P650SE (a much thinner device with much smaller heatsinks and thinner fan blades) fares in regards to surface temps under gaming load:

Spoiler: Clevo surface temps

 

Wonder if the CPU is dropping down to 800MHz as prime95 and furmark are going to create some unrealistic power consumption and certainly heat with both the CPU and GPU loaded so extreme on the shared cooling system, hence actually thermal throttling first for the CPU. In anycase I cannot see how it would be possible to maintain that kind of load on 180W PSU. If Surface temp taken while under prime95 and furmark, then really unrealistic to what you would get gaming, although does look very hot regardless.

When I looked at the service manual, the motherboard size is identical to the AW15. There are a couple of ribbon cable extenders to reach the ports on the sides, and a gap where the fan would normally sit on the AW15. Thinking the only real difference between the AW15 and AW17 R2 is the CPU BGA config and the length of the heat-pipes, other that that much the same.

 

Hello Kabayan!

I salute your bravery o7
I'm still running on the safe side even. Too scared I might break/burn/blow up something in here.

 

If you have opened a laptop before then you'll be fine + Im a girl lol. You literally have to take the palmrest and the screen off before you can take the mother board out but wasn't bad at all. Did it maybe twice yesterday.

Here is how the thermal paste was applied in the factory. I am dissappointed. The paste is too thick.

 

Hi Sir! You should join the Alienware Philippines Club. Im a newbie there too. haha.

 

The problem isn't so much that it's too thick. You can see on the GPU that almost half of the GPU die wasn't making very good contact with the heatsink (well, maybe that was due to too much paste).

 

Yeah I think they apply it excessively and then when the GPU gets pressed on, it squeezes it out of way leading to something that looks like that.

They just use way too damn much and I think its because they'd rather be on the safe side, if they put too little by mistake then the thing would overheat in seconds. But if they put too much then it just runs hotter.

Plus judging by how even those squares are a computer had to have been applying it or it comes in prepackaged squares that they just "stick" (for a lack of a better word) on.

 

Agree. Even the GPU die has a big square and it isn't even that big. haha. At least my problem is solved Im happy with my 17 r2 now.

 

A terrible example of thermal grease. Can this be done any worse?

dell make scratch on heatsink when tech visit

 

Every OEM is like that....

 

I know http://i.imgur.com/njX8vnF.jpg

 

when dell learn send good tech

 

A screwdriver is obviously the number one preferred way to remove paste

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

That song "everything is awesome" in the lego movie. That's how this computer paired with the titan x is making me feel. I have filled up my HDD with games testing it out and my connection hasn't gotten a break since yesterday.

 

Makes you all giddy inside eh? That satisfying tingly sensation

 

I wouldnt trust the heatsink is perfectly flat either or not slightly warped. My old M17x R3 CPU heatsink doesn't make contact perfectly on one side, hence my own reason I have no choice but to use extra thermal compound, which I found out after my warranty run out. Doesn't matter how many times I take it out and reapply it, just isn't fully flat. Wouldn't be surprised there are some defective heat sinks.

 

The pointier and sharper the better.

 

This is an owners lounge, not a place to go back and fourth about what you think about the machine if you are not talking about the machine you OWN! So no more trolling and please do not take the troll bait. relevant posts deleted.

 

Ok so just got my second machine in. Display is still very nice.

Unfortunately, temps are not. Even with a -65mv undervolt, XTU stress test temps reach 80C. Keyboard temps are hot (hotter than the Clevo P650SE). During a 10 minute Bioshock Infinite run, CPU temps hit 89C.

I'll do a re-paste and see if that helps. Though I'm currently very displeased.

 

I just got a deal today for i7-4710HQ, GTX 970M, true life with touch tech screen, 8GB RAM, and 1TB 7200RPM hard drive, everything for $1470 after tax and including free NBD shipping. Is that a good one?

 

Which BIOS? Multiple people have said A01/A02 runs 10C hotter so it might be worth going back down to A00 unless you really need the hybrid bios set up (no 240W PSU, or live in a country where you can't get it)

 

Bios A02. I'm going to try downgrading to A00.

And hey, if it bricks - return!!

 

Yup haha

I know some laptops shipped with A01 but theres no changelog for that BIOS revision, so who knows what was fixed / changed in that.

 

ye olde mystery bios

 

So yeah, mine shipped with the A02 BIOS. Downgrading the BIOS did help temps.

Now, having looked through the manual and opened up the machine a bit, it does indeed seem that something as simple as a re-paste requires you to completely disassemble the laptop.

Needless to say, I'm pretty ticked off right now. What is this, an ASUS?

 

Quick update: After experincing some really weird problems (transmitting data over usb ports usb on the left side not possible because of disconnection the ext. drive + weird noise during the transmission from the subwoofer) I decided to return my AW17 R2. This was the second time I've had problems with the AW17 R2 series. I've actually excepted a better build quality from dell...anyway...Maybe I'll buy a ROG

 

Keep in mind, the ROG series has its own set of issues. Namely disconnecting USB ports on the left side, audio and wifi connectivity.

 

Oh...thanks for the info. Looks like I'ver to wait till they fix those.

 

Audio is fixed with latest Realtek drivers. Wifi/USB isn't really going to get fixed. Either your machine has those issues or it doesn't.

 

Hasn't the USB thing been a problem with asus for a while now? And from multiple versions of their laptops also? They just kind of decided meh we won't fix it.

 

Yup. The issues lies in how the USB ports are connected to the motherboard. It mostly only manifests itself when transferring large files.

The WIFI issue is probably just an issue with the Intel 7260 wifi card/drivers.

 

That's one of the reasons why I didn't go with Asus lol. I use a lot of USB ports with my audio recording equipment lol.

 

Noticed some strangeness with the USB ports on the graphics amp this morning. The 360 controller will press the start button repeatedly while playing GTA V, think it has to do with interference from the Titan X running

 

Stress test using Intel xtu A00 Bios temp is reaching 80
Using A02 Bios on new unit temp is around 66-70

 

so actually the stress test in xtu with a02 knocked the score down, tested with A00 bios and getting higher score and lower temp on the replacement unit

 

Funky business going on here. Downgrading to A00 on my unit dropped temps.

 

A00 bios is my favorite bios.

 

Hello I been a lurker for some time now and recently just need some help on on a laptop am planning on buying.
I want to buy an alienware my budget is 1800 tops whats the best configuration i can get for gaming it has to be a laptop
Also am plan on upgrading ram and harddrive on my own. I have 16gb ram and a 256 SSD at home already from an older laptop.
When am checking things out between the 15 and 17 i see some vote for the 15 with the Amplifier and even some for the 17 with amplifier. The games I will play dont have to be in ultra settings as long as they run well on med-high options. What I had in mind was to get the 17 most basic one and add the amplifier then in the future buy a card for it. And at home upgrade the 8gb ram to 16gb and change/add the SSD that i have home. Would that be enough to run upcoming games? How future proof is this setup I would like for it to at least be 2 years? Last concern is I have an old alienware 17 I see alot of people not happy with build quality. Is it really that bad the plastic reason is i throw my laptop on a bag with some books or papers I would not want for laptop for break or chip. I never had an issue with the aluminum one so I dont know if it could be an issue since this one is plastic. Would heating also be an issue. Sorry for the brick of text but it took me long time to save this amount I just want the laptop to last me 2 years and i would be happy camper.
Thanks in advance =)

 

My personal opinion: buying an alienware unit is a hit and miss thing. My previous Alienware unit was the m17x r3 (released on 2011); while some people were having trouble with it, mine lasted me for four years without issue until the graphic card is dead (6970M) recently. Same thing with this new model of Alienware, you may get a lemon, or you may get a good one. Also it comes down to personal preference really (how picky you are). Some people will complain about the fingerprints, but others may not even be bothered with it. Others may also complain about the noise and the heat, but I dont get annoyed with the noise. For me, having the noise can be a good thing that my fan or computer is still working. If I am playing games and I dont hear any fan noise, then I will be worried.

I am ordering the Alienware 17 r2, and as I know myself, I wont be bothered with the keyboard temp, reflection on glossy screen, fingerprints or what have you. Just go with the Alienware unit that fits your purpose. If you are using the unit only to play moderate game, why even bother to get the very high end configuration and rain all the $$$ on Dell.

 

So I haven't written a full review of this yet. So here we go:

This is more or less my review of the laptop, so I'll go over everything in the order someone would most likely experience them. I'd like to say I've had it a fair enough time to give an accurate judgement, I've had it for over 2 weeks now and no issues.

The laptop this was replacing is an old Asus G73SW laptop that has served me for a few years. Due to issues with Asus, I will never buy from them again. So after using this Alienware, I can say I will NEVER go back to Asus, this laptop was an upgrade in quality in every way from any Asus I've used.


Alienware 17R2 Specs

• Truelife display with touch technology
• i7-4980HQ
• 16 GB of RAM
• NVidia GTX 980M
• 1 TB 5400RPM HDD (replaced with 512 GB Crucial MX100 after recieving)
• Using a 330W PSU (not included with my laptop)

The box it arrived in, pretty cool.



LOOKS & FEEL
So the Alienware 17R2 is a laptop that's made for gaming and performance. Since Alienware switched to a BGA model for their CPU and GPU, the size/thickness and weight of the laptop decreased a bit compared to the R1 counterpart. This definitely was a better choice since the laptop in its current stages does look a lot more aesthetically pleasing than the R1 to me. Now when this laptop is closed, you get the top grey area on the lid that looks almost like metal with the Alienware Logo on it, it even feels almost like metal. Just the logo itself to me was promising of cool things to come when I power it on.



So I opened it and my first reaction to this laptop was to how solid it felt in my hand. It didn't feel like a cheap plastic toy compared to every other laptop I used, it felt like a solid premium laptop. The black matte finish definitely adds a cool touch to the overall look for the laptop itself. The only bad thing about it is the matte finish picks up marks easily from hands.

So booting it up, the AlienFX lighting is actually pretty cool, it IS one of the things that helps differentiate Alienware from other computers. It is a bit of a neat feature to have. I actually find the lighting up touchpad to be pretty cool despite some people finding it distracting.

There's not much more to say about the aesthetic except this laptop was clearly a well designed piece of technology and they carefully considered the visual impact they wanted this laptop to have. Most definitely one of the coolest, if not the coolest looking laptop on the market.

PROS:

• Feels durable and solid
• Looks pretty cool
• AlienFX

CONS:

• Matte black finish on the body marks very easily

KEYBOARD & TOUCHPAD

The keyboard on this laptop is actually pretty damn awesome. The keys are actually a bit bigger than my old laptop which took a bit of getting used to but now I type faster....the good news is: NO DROPPED KEYS. Dropped keys plagued me on my old laptop when I typed too quickly, I haven't experienced any of this at all with this laptop. Keys are very responsive with a nice firmness to them when you press them. Most definitely the best keyboard I've used since it feels very comfortable to use.

I haven't used the macro keys at all, but they are a very nice feature to have and I'm going to make use of them some day soon, I hope! I don't wanna waste them being there. Some people have said that they have the issue of pressing the macro keys every time they go to press ESC but I haven't had that issue at all, it probably would take someone 5 minutes to adjust if they had this issue.

Now one thing with this keyboard is that when the laptop is gaming, the keyboard tended to get a little too hot to be comfortable for my hands (the hottest components are right under the keyboard area). I'd suspect from complaints on this forum, that the issue is not universal but still it does happen to some people. My solution for this was to undervolt by 68 mV which lowered temperatures enough to make it more comfortable for my hand.

Now a touchpad is pretty simple to review, so basically it works its basic functionality well. The buttons on it feel pretty solid and springy. I liked the feel of them a lot, actually. I tend to use a mouse so I wouldn't say I use the touchpad too often unless I'm just relaxing and not doing anything too much on the computer. But one thing that is disappointing about the touchpad is the gestures actually plain flat out suck at registering.

When I try to scroll down a page, the page will scroll down perfectly sometimes, then I keep trying to scroll, the cursor randomly starts bugging out and the page scrolls up and down and goes crazy. I feel this could probably be fixed in a driver update, so Synaptics should probably get on that. Trying to even scroll with the touchpad through a page results in me highlighting the entire page, the cursor spinning in circles or following a irratic trail, followed by closing me out of 2-3 tabs. That's the average experience I've had with the gestures like that on it.

PROS:

• Solid feeling keyboard
• No dropped keys
• Macro keys can be useful
• Solid touchpad

CONS:

• Temperature of keyboard under gaming can be unreasonably hot
• Gestures don't work very well at all

DISPLAY

The Alienware 17R2 that I ordered came with the Truelife panel with Touch technology (60 Hz). Now previously owning the matte display, which cause me eye strain (it was still a decent panel but I personally had issues with it that other users wouldn't face), I can say that this Truelife glossy display BLOWS every other laptop I've seen or used out of the water in that respect. This screen is VERY clear in everything. Colours are vibrant and amazingly crisp. Funny thing is when I first looked at a forum I frequent I was like "Wait....the background of the forum is that bright of a white?" So I checked the hex colour of the background, yup white! So this came pretty nicely calibrated already.

So after going through that I decided to check for backlight bleed, the bleed on the laptop is totally minimal. I actually had to look for it by having a purely black background and turn off all the lights in the apartment to see. Speaking of light, since this is a glossy screen, it does tend to reflect like glossy screens do but given my use, this has never been a problem with me. I've used glossy screens for years and never had this issue.

I actually don't use the touch screen very often. If I'm hanging over the computer rather than touch the touchpad I use the touch screen. It's very responsive, works very well. I just don't like leaving finger prints on my screen all that much, but I make sure my hands are clean. The touch definitely compliments windows 8.1 a bit, but I still prefer my keyboard and touchpad/mouse.

I will say now though since owning a laptop with a touch screen that I tend to touch the screens of other laptops now out of habit and look like an idiot when they don't have a touch screen.

My only concern in this category is why Dell/Alienware decided to discontinue the option for a 120 Hz display. I would be nice to see some love from them with a 120 Hz display like previous years as it does make a difference.

PROS:

• Very well calibrated out of the box
• Vibrant crystal clear colours
• Touch is a sometimes convenient feature

CONS:

• Only 60 Hz? Why not make a 120 Hz model for people like previous years?

SPEAKERS/AUDIO

A bit of a disclaimer here, I someone who plays instruments (guitar, piano, bass) myself, so I am a bit picky as to what I want to hear in terms of speaker quality/voicing.

Alright, the speakers are Klipsch audio, so that is supposed to be some sort of advertisement of quality audio in these laptops, right? Well, actually I think they honestly (out of the box) fall short of my expectations by a lot. I enjoy all genres of music but stick with pop-punk, rock and some electronic music mostly. I find these speakers sound a bit muffled a bit and they sound like there's something missing. It almost feels like they take some of life out of the music. Then when I plug my headphones in, the life comes back.

I think the speaker placement is what muffles them to some degree. The best way to describe it, is imagine blowing up a speaker from playing it too loud, then playing music through it. That's exactly what these sound like: muffled, mediocre quality, almost like listening to music underwater. The bass is decent for a laptop, though.

The good news is the EQ can fix some of the problems. I messed around with it a bit and managed to find an acceptable sound, but still I can't get all the life back into it that I'd like. This is something that needs to be addressed by Dell in future builds. The only reason I have no major issues with this is most likely because if I'm doing anything serious with music, I use headphones. I just use these speakers for anything else and audio quality isn't super important there.

PROS:

• Software for the audio is helpful to make the sound tolerable
• Bass is pretty good

CONS:

• Speakers sound muffled and poor out of the box
• Takes the life out of music somewhat
• The above problems weren't completely solved with EQ

GAMING & ACTUAL USE

Now let me preface this by saying, I'm not an actual huge gamer, so I don't game as much as most people who own this laptop would probably. I'm an engineering student so my main area of focus is CAD and programming. On the other side of things I use this laptop for my music recording and so on. So this laptop has NVidia GTX 980M graphics and an Intel i7-4980HQ processor.

Since this is a gaming laptop, I won't give an exhaustive detail on how it works in other programs like Solidworks but, I will say it actually does handle assemblies very well, running fine under 100+ part assemblies with no noticeable issues on my end. Even though this GPU is not officially supported by Solidworks, it still performs well for me to get what I need to get done.
For music production latency was reduced for me, I run more plugins record more with minimal issues, it's a somewhat liberating, awesome feeling. Thumbs up for this stuff.

So for gaming (this is most likely what people care about), I took this through a couple games to see how it'd play with them: Far Cry 4, Crysis 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition.

For Crysis 3, everything was on VERY HIGH quality (I think I had Anti Aliasing set to 2x and shadows on medium) and the average framerate during the entire game I found was near 60 fps. Some places it would dip down to 40 during extremely active action scenes but I didn't experience this often, most environments and areas in the game (I played through the whole game), I saw constant 60 fps. Overall reviews say the average fps on this should be 43.3 fps for the 980m and I'd say that's more or less right depending on your settings.

With Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age Inquisition, I only played both for about an hour or two before I got bored. But my experiences with it are on the highest settings expect to get 45-60 fps. Solid framerates for the settings, especially for a laptop. Dragon Age Inquitision looked REALLY good though, I was extremely pleased with it. I want to finish it, but I uninstalled Far Cry 4, I can't get into it at all.

Now there was an issue (that is now mostly corrected) with the laptops being shipped with a power adapter that didn't supply enough power the laptop at 100% efficiency, Dell has corrected this and is offering a replacement 240W power supply for people who may be affected (depending on local laws and regulations). So I ran my games with a 330W power supply because that is the supply I have handy.

So if your goal is a single GPU laptop that plays all these games on high settings with playable framerates, buy this now! You will not regret it at all.

Now the cool thing is with this you have the optional Graphics Amplifer, which I don't own, but it's definitely an effective solution to upgrade your GPU when newer games come out. I find this a neat cost effective solution since desktop cards are cheaper and more powerful than buying a new laptop or replacing your old GPU that you would have had if you had used sockets. Definitely a good move on Alienware's behalf for their customers' benefit. Good job on this guys, just keep supporting new cards and I'll probably end up getting one of these some day.

COOLING

I'm going to use this section a bit here to talk about the cooling of the laptops as well as average temperatures. As you may know the laptop cools using a shared copper pipe/heatsink between the CPU and GPU that runs under the keyboard (hence why the keyboard heats up).

The ambient temperature is room temperature (20 degrees Celsius roughly).

Running this laptop with no undervolting and everything on default my idle temperatures for the CPU were around 52-56 degrees Celsius. The temperature under load got up to about 85 degrees Celsius, pretty hot for a new CPU. One huge issue with this is that it actually seems to throttle the processor when it gets this hot. Dropping the 2.8 GHz processor down to a lowly 800 MHz because of Intel's aggressive throttling (this needs to be fixed, seriously). It appears that the throttling doesn't affect everyone, but it affects more than just Alienware's laptops, it has been seen in other companies' laptops as well.

The GPU was much more reasonable, the temperatures under load went between 65-70 Celsius.


So my solution was to undervolt the laptop. Running a 68 mV undervolt seems to keep temperatures on the CPU under idle at 45-52C on average, while the temperatures under load are usually around 70-77. Running this seemed to reduce, if not eliminate the throttling I was experiencing.

Alienware are known for their great cooling and it is great...when it comes on. The fan tables on these laptops (and past) are messed up and I think this may be part of the case of the throttling with the CPU happening. So please either let us access the fans ourselves for this laptop OR fix the profile for the fans. The fans come on after 60 Celsius for me, I'd prefer they come on lightly NOW than loud later.

PROS:

• Great performance, one of the most powerful single GPU laptops
• Powerful GPU and CPU
• Great cooling when it comes on
• Graphics Amplifier

CONS:

• Poor fan profiles
• Throttling CPU due to heat

BENCHMARKING AND REMARKS:
It wasn't until I benchmarked this again did I actually realize how truly bad the throttling issue is with this laptop:

My benchmarks in balance performance mode:


Run 1:
3DMark11
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9635153
Overall 11234
Graphics 12518
Physics 9066

FireStrike:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6474011
Overall 8352
Graphics 9707
Physics 9845

Run 2:
3DMark11
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9694862
Overall 11553
Graphics 12428
Physics 9484

FireStrike
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6641542
Overall 8409
Graphics 9748
Physics 10072

Benchmark in high performance:

Run 1:
3DMark11
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9694393
Overall 10397
Graphics 12263
Physics 7100

FireStrike
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6640430
Overall 7842
Graphics 9702
Physics 6773

Run 2:
Benchmark again with Balanced:
3DMark11
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9694555
Overall 10720
Graphics 12364
Physics 7550

FireStrike
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6640520
Overall 8070
Graphics 9752
Physics 7435


Some graphs here to show comparisons easier:



As can be seen here the overall score tends to drop a about 1000 points in 3DMark11 when using high performance compared to balanced. In Firestrike it drops about 400-500 points when in high performance.



Graphics scores here are more or less equal across the board so they can't be attributed to any decline in an overall score. These are pretty good.


Here is where it all falls to hell. You can see here there is about a 20-25% LOSS of performance in the CPU itself in both 3dMark11 and Firestrike because of the high performance setting. This is clearly related to the throttling issue known to these CPUs. If they were developed properly with less aggressive thermal throttling or if we were given access to change the TDP or put the fans on earlier, we may see less of an issue. But given that they throttle even before the temperature hits even 90, this is an issue that needs some input from Dell and Intel both.

And because this doesn't fit in anywhere else, I'll just say the webcam on this laptop is solid. Works well with no issues, decent quality, I'm pleased with it. I can skype well with it and have no issues with people hearing me from its microphone. The picture is not blurry either.

I didn't bother to mention much about the default harddive because a 5400RPM drive has no place in a gaming machine and I replaced it immediately with a 512 GB SSD to make this computer fast like it should be. Boot up is less than 10 seconds and it is never



You can see some hand/fingerprints on the body of it a bit in this picture due to the lighting.


So for a quick recap:

PROS:

• Durable build and cool looks
• Keyboard backlight
• Responsive great feeling keyboard
• Macro keys
• Amazing crystal clear vibrant screen
• Touch screen works very well
• Powerful CPU with a powerful mobile GPU
• Graphics Amplifier is a great add on for extending the laptop's gaming life
• Good cooling when it comes on
• Good quality webcam

CONS:

• Matte finish marks (finger prints) easily
• Gestures for touchpad work poorly
• Mediocre speakers sound somewhat muffled
• Throttling issues with CPU at times & poor (fans come in too late sometimes) fan profiles

This is a very solid laptop, I don't think anyone could go wrong purchasing it, it is definitely worth the price considering how well it can perform under the right settings. I will definitely be keeping it so I will not make a return. If this laptop were stolen and I had the money, I would definitely pick it up again for sure.
The issues plaguing this machine from truly standing out as the best among the best are the mediocre(at best) speakers and the CPU cooling issue. Given that the CPU cooling issue tends to be intermittent at times and can be controlled by use of the balanced plan, it's not as much of a detraction as it could be to me.

So even with a couple issues, I'd recommend buying it to anyone looking for a machine in this class of gaming laptops. Due to Dell/Alienware's generous 30 day refund period, if you encounter any issues you are able to get a full refund on the laptop.



And as many of you are familiar with my issue with my last laptop, I'll just say a quick word on that below.

Now I know there is some degree of negative sentiment towards Dell on the forum here somewhat. I know I expressed some displeasure with them myself because of the issue I have, but given the result of things, I understand that sometimes things don't always go as they should.
So from my experience after speaking with the executive team, I will say my expectations were exceeded at the level of customer service I received from them. They showed me despite the size of a company like Dell, they can offer service that I've never had from a small company.
After contacting them they took my issue on as their own and resolved it while keeping in contact with me.
They were extremely genuine, polite, understanding and friendly towards me despite my obvious frustration and displeasure. Their ownership, despite being so busy and not generally working with customers showed me how professional they were and that Dell actually does care. These guys actually care a hell of a lot about the customers and what our opinion is. They aren't a faceless corporation like people would like to characterize them with. No doubt, they won me back as a customer, not just for this purchase, but for the future. Huge thanks to them.

 

Fantastic review when I get home I will read it in greater detail

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