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

I had 2 blue screens after I updated to A04 with the message Driver_Power_State_Failure

I don't know if this is the issue with the bios or my laptop is bad. I don't know what to do now....

I think I will roll back to A02 and see if it will still happen.

 

i got the same error too, and guess what? the tech came to my house and replaced the trackpad. ??? (--.--) need less to say, it didn't solve my problem.

 

How often does it happen to you?

It happened only twice to me. I ran Prime 95, Unigene Heaven, Unigine Vally, Firestrike, COD AW, DOTA 2, watched Netflix and still no blue scree and I was switching between battery and AC Adapter.

I did update some drivers and I hope it will not happen again.

I dont want to replace it and go through all the headaches....

 

I have the 4750 cpu and the 980GPU with 180W power pack. My grandson plays WOW all day, and I check the heat and it seemed ok, just a bit warm, and I did not hear the fan at all since it is so quiet. I still use the original A00 bios and just asked Dell for the 240W, and they send it to me. From what I read in this forum, the high heat could be due to the bad cooling paste application.

 

Hi guys, I got a strange, squeaking noise coming from left side of the laptop when USB/external hard drive is plugged in, doesn't matter which one. There is no noise if there is nothing plugged in. Everything is OK with the right side USB ports however.
Anyone else got the same noise? The sound is a bit faint tho so I have to focus on it. I'm afraid I got a bad circuit.

I did clean install Windows and reinstall all drivers from Dell. I updated to BIOS A04, previously from A00, but the problem still persist.
I'm sure it's not the noise from hard drive or fan spinning.

Thanks!

Spec: i7-4710HQ, 970M, 256GB SSD, 1TB 5400RPM HDD, 180W brick.

 

Does anyone know if the speakers are supposed to be weaker than the 2013 model of the 17? The 2013-2014 model was loud and powerful. I could set them at 50% and be fine, these ones need to be jacked up to 95% and they still sound weak as hell. If they are just in general weaker speakers I can deal with that, I just want to make sure they are not broken.

 

Is downgrading BIOS risky, dangerous for hardware? They say A00 is the best for 240w psu owners and probably my aw17 will come with A02..Should i downgrade, or let it be !!??

 

Hey guys, please give me model number of 240w PSU that Dell give.

 

Does anyone know if one of the audio Jacks also doubles as a SPDIF optical jack?

 

HELP!!!!!! just got myself an r2 17 2015 980m 180w . The PROBLEM is that one fine evening my laptop suddenly experienced wierd yellowish screen distortion with vertical lines. This was a day after I upgraded the BIOS to A02 from A00. Upon restart Windows 8.1 locked me into an auto repair loop although it did take me to the startup repair options screen where nothing would work. I then clicked continue to windows and it started the same repair thing again. It was only after I pressed f12 and went into the UEFI boot options that I was able to boot from my LITEON SSD. I also put in a second ssd, Samsung evo 800 500gb which is blank. Soon after the incident this F12 booting stopped working as after I shutdown and started again my hard drive would not show up on the UEFI boot options where it appeared separately from Windows Boot Manager but with its own Windows Boot Manager Prefix. I went into BIOS setup via F2 and saw both the drives listed. The LITEON ssd does not show up in the boot priority either. I then removed the second Samsung SSD from the bottom bay and tried to boot the system again. The auto repair issue continued but I was able to boot my Liteon SSD through the uefi boot options accessed via f12. Please note that when the alien head appears there is a flicker on the screen during which it states that media presence detected. I then installed witcher 3 and started playing it. Everything was fine until I got WHEA uncorrectable error caused by Hal.dll. I reinstalled nvidia drivers and uninstalled afterburner and the issue was solved for a while. Then it happened again. I isolated the issue to heating up using hardware info 64 where my CPU core temps would rise to late 80s and early 90s (i7 4980). Please note that by now I was running the A04 BIOS when the WHEA error occurred. After I shutdown my system and started it again the same hard drive not detected issue would not let me boot. I then plugged in the Samsung EVO SSD and my LITEON SSD showed up in the UEFI options. The same issues are bothering me till now and I am severely stressed. I have tried repairing windows via Ms Dos DISM, changed the boot priority using Legacy boot and have removed Intel rapid storage. The WHEA error only occurs when playing the witcher 3 and that maybe due to A04 BIOS not letting the fans run more aggressively. But this hard drive issue is causing me worries without end. I'm in Pakistan and I got this model from Dubai as a gift. I don't know how correct this mess. A clean windows install and a BIOS downgrade back to the stock A00. Please help guys PLLLLEEEEEEAAAAAASSSSE.

 

not dangerous at all

 

A00 has a better fan profile although you'll lose out on the performance very slightly. Trust me. I'm dying to find a method to downgrade from A04 myself. WHEA error due to cpu temps forced my hand.

 

honestly I think those whea errors come from the bios moreso than anything wrong with the hardware. They are trying to put in some hybrid functionality into a product that was never designed to support that functionality beforehand and its shows.

 

Yes that is very true. I'm looking for a way to downgrade it. Haven't found one.

 

What happens when you try to flash A00?

 

My laptop came with a01, i will just upgrade it to a02 and stay there i guess !

 

Too scared to take the Step myself.

 

S

You can downgrade as well. Dell seriously need to get their act together. Realesse a new BIOS with A00 fan profiles.

 

What about the performance that i will loose slightly?

 

sorry if any of this is dumb, but i'm new to pc gaming so I don't know nearly as much as any of you guys do. i've been trying to get witcher 3 running on my alienware 17 for the last two days. i have bios A02, updated the nvidia drivers, etc. I have the gtx 970m, 4710, 8gb ram model. My problem is i've been trying to get it past 10 fps. started on high and worked my way down to low. nothing changes, it maxes out at like 15 fps. i recorded with alienadrenaline to monitor the performance, and the gpu isn't working at all. its recognizing it, but its just not running. i switched to high performance mode in the power settings and nothing changed.

any suggestions?

 

If u updateed nvidia driver to Witcher ready and still have problem, try To set in Nvidia control panel force use Nvidia gpu to witcher game. Its can be set in 3d applications something like this. Its in Nvidia control center.

 

5%

 

on which benchmarks are you basing this assessment? You said that you did not flashed your system to a00

 

The game is running on the intel graphic card
.right click on the desktop
.go to nvidia panel
.select the witcher 3 in the list of the game
.select the 980/970 gpu


It happens quite often when you install a new game

 

I haven't downgraded to a00. My estimates are from doing research on various forums. Its like a balancing act. Either your gpu gets more or your cpu. Run games in balanced mode because that will enable PCIe powersaving which will reduce cpu throttling. Can you please smell the vent of your cpu. My laptop gives of a plastic smell but I'm confused if something melt or is it just heated plastic. It gives it off even when its off.

 

I just ordered an alienware 17 r2 with the gtx 980m. Does anyone have a problem with texture pop-in/delay in games using the stock 5400rpm drive?

On my old MSi GS70 that was a big problem if i installed games on the hdd instead of the ssd. Seems lame to have to get an ssd ($$$) just for textures to Load properly...

 

I figured it was using the cpu graphics card...

Going through the Nvidia panel worked like a charm. I appreciate it!

 

I use the stock drive for games and notice no issues

 

Any way 5400Hdd in some games will cause some lag effect. I prefer Setup online games on ssd to avoid that.

 

I better own a laptop cooler for safety

 

My laptop had the hot plastic smell from the vents for the first few days I owned it and ran it, but it's since gone away. So far the laptop is working fine. I also downgraded to A00 without issue, and I notice the temps are a lot better under idle and full load.

 

I downgraded too and its reduced dramatically.

 

Guys I need help. Haven't been able to utilise my new alienware 17 R2 2015 because of it. So I removed the stock 1tb Toshiba drive and all I had was the 256gb msata LiteOn drive with windows. Now I have detection issues with it as I only have my msata and it fails to boot windows if I turn off the system and turn it back on immediately. I also suffered a crash few days after removing the 1tb drive which corrupted my windows. Please note that between today and the day of removing the 1 tb drive I had installed a 500gb SSD in its place. It was present when the crash happened followed soon by detection and booting issues. I could get it to boot but only if I removed the SSD or put it back again depending on what scenario windows failed to load. Now I removed the 500gb SSD because it came from a friends desktop that short circuited 1 minute after its first start and had its own system partitions. Now I'm left with the msata and have to install windows 8.1 on it. Please note that both drives showed up in BIOS. The mSata continues to show in BIOS as the second hdd. I'm running in UEFI secure boot on and Intel Smart Response enabled. Just yesterday downgraded to A00 BIOS.

 

install Windows on the ssd while it's in the alienware using a flash drive

 

The ssd is defective. Only want to use the msata one. The Msata was used as a cache for the 1 tb drive I removed. Some people saying on other forums to disable Intel smart response and change it to ahcp in the sata control method from the bios.

 

Let us know how that goes

 

Just got my laptop a few days ago and found out both USB ports on the left side are not working or detecting anything. The two USB ports on the right side are okay. I checked device manager in the control panel and no yellow exclamation mark there. So far the only thing I did is updated to the latest A04 BIOS. I also got the latest USB 3.0 Host controller driver (Chipset_Driver_RYY2F_WN_3.0.1.41_A00.EXE) but was not able to install it. I got the message "This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software".

Also tried to reimaged the hard drive to factory version through AlienRespawn but it did not help either.

Called DELL support and they will send a tech out to replace the USB board but I am just curious if there is anything else I should check for.

 

Like defective motherboard

 

Had to do a fresh windows install for Bluetooth to work on mine :/

 

Please tell me the iOS boots from dell on the SSD and not the HDD when equipted with both.

Besides the 240w PS and not yet upgrading the bios, anything else to prepare for incoming?

 

A lot of people have received their Alienwares with the OS installed on the HDD instead of the SSD. You'll probably just have to do a clean install.

 

Mine came with windows installed on the m2sata. Its an ssd caching configuration. Your windows will most likely be booting the operating system from the Msata ssd.

 

I recognize this as well at the left USB ports. What could it be??

 

wow, just got this 17 R2... and now its giving extreme artifacts when heavy gaming. its not anywhere near overheating (67c max gpu temp).

 

So after getting screwed by Sager the last time i purchased a gaming laptop, I decided to get an AW 17 and I ordered it last week. Seeing all of the negative comments on this forum is starting to give me buyers remorse before I even see the laptop first hand. Is there anybody who is happy with this computer? I would greatly appreciate some positive testimonials to ease my mind. At present, I feel like I am going to have to make sure the operator that handled my order did not perform some kind of bait and switch and I am also worried that I need to downgrade my bios (no clue how to do that) in order to get my fans running properly. Cheers.

 

I am happy with mine

 

I am very happy with mine, downgrading the bios is as simple as updating it, just flash the previous bios version and all is good.

 

Getting the new model after having used the m17x r3 for the past 3-4 years, the GPU finally gave out, but just wanted to say gpom74 forums aren't the greatest place to find positive feedback. Started reading here to decide wether I should stick with AW for my new rig and was shocked by all these complaints or problems, also felt the way you are feeling. Then I went and read some of the other forums on MSI and ASUS, what became clear is that through all three manufacturers I was looking at, AW comes out on top, simply because I personally value customer support and warranties quite highly as I am quite trouble prone with technology... So yeah no matter what brand one chooses there may or may not be issues just a fact of life and technology.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

generally speaking, gaming laptops are the LEAST RELIABLE and LEAST CONVENIENT kind of laptop you can buy. Its always a risk, no matter what brand. Alienware, despite any complaints you might see here, is your safest bet simply because Dell has unrivaled customer support, and will send someone running to your house in 1-3 days (depending on shipping delays) to replace anything that breaks. With ASUS, even if you take it to an authorized repair center, it can take then 2 weeks to get the parts. MSi technical support is virtually non-existent. Sager is a really small brand, so I don't expect that they have very good customer service.

 

Thanks for taking time to give your positive feedback about AW. I am really excited to get my new laptop next week!

One last thing, Should my first step after firing it up be to downgrade the bios to the one with proper fan control?