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

ohh.. ok when I run games it shows in the sensor that its utilizing 1047mhz clockspeed.. so the thing written in the first tab doesn't matter? as long as it is increasing in the sensor's tab while gaming?..
by the way what do you usually do to set up your laptop before gaming if its new?

 

Yes that tab doesnt matter mine is same way the gpu automatically downclocks depending on if load is little or not used at all during idle due to nvidia optimus. It is a wonderful thing really have so much battery life unplugged when not gaming. You can use 3dmark to benchmark your system and post results to see if machine is performing as it should.

A few software applications I would suggest getting are:

Prime95 - to check whether cpu throttles

Hwinfo64 - monitoring application for temperatures of cpu/gpu and much more

3d mark - download from steam, benchmark software can compare results to others with same hardware.



Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk

 

When I buy a new laptop I generally do the following:
1) Uninstall any installed software I won't use.
2) Defrag any HDDs with Auslogics Disk Defrag (free).
3) Change Operating System to High Performance Power Plan.
4) Update GPU driver to latest driver on Nvidia website.
4) Run benchmark programs for CPU & GPU, the 3DMark series are good for both, to see if my CPU & GPU are scoring to the normal target (average scores you can find on notebookcheck.net ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html). While doing this I'd use Throttlestop (my choice) and GPUz to monitor temperatures and frequencies.

Those are the main points for me.

Oh, and to answer your question: Yep, the frequency in the Sensors Tab is the important one, because that's actually what your GPU is doing.

 

thanks man.. can you post your scores on 3d mark without OCing your laptop since we have the same GPU. by the way if your playing dying light and witcher 3 without your laptop being OC'D what's the fps that you get? (min ave max)

 

thanks man ive done verything you said except from defragmenting and benchmarking.. currently downloading 3d mark to test my laptop... the only thing that's bothering me is with my current GPU (gtx 970m, not OC'd), I'm only getting 40-50fps in dying light with everything set on maximum. and some drops to 35 and 38 specially when its morning in the game.. and I saw a gameplay video in youtube where he also have a gtx970m but he gets a constant 50+fps. i was wondering if his video is accurate or if he just OC'd his card.

 

Well checking your 3DMark benchmark scores (which you're downloading) will go a long way to prove that it's functioning correctly. Dying Light I just recently bought, but not really played it yet, only just enough to set up the graphics settings for good performance & quality - it uses a fair bit of CPU power, so I'd check you're not getting CPU or GPU throttling (reduction of clocks), check the temperatures too. Those monitoring programs we talked about are useful for that. (Also make sure you're using the same graphics settings in your comparison.)

 

The battery life is amazing (idle/wifi) one of the best you will find in a gaming laptop. I have not done any official benchmark but around 11 hr idle/reader 7 hr wifi / video and 1.5hr load.

Btw I just tested witcher 3 with medium settint postproccessing and high graphic setting defaults, around 35-45 fps

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Tapatalk

 

I just received my Alienware R3, looks fantastic, but I would like to perform a clean installation of the OS
If I do so, will I lose the alienware Logo shown on startup? I really like it and wouldn't like to lose it

 

No the logo is built into the Bios.

 

Can I clean install Windows 10 using the MS media creation tool? - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 INSTEAD of the recovery disc provided by Dell?
The size seems to be too big and I have all the drivers download and ready

Is there any disadvantage of installing windows from Microsoft website than from dell website?

 

I have the same laptop as yours but with 950 pro ssd.
Here is my 3d mark SKY DIVER v1.0 results: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10145247?
Here is my 3d mark firestrike v1.1 result: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10145781?
I am also attaching the same in case if the link doesn't work.
I had to run them twice as the first time first few tests did not run in full screen mode.

3d Mark shows 540 MHz core clock but GPU-Z sensor log shows 1037 MHz core clock. Not sure what's going on.

What does it show for you in the memory section? It shows me as "4,096 MB Hyundai Electronics @ 1,066 MHz". Isn't it 2133 Mhz?

 

Personally I think the ssd boot drive alienware uses is terrible. I went with the 1tb hdd and bought and 850 evo then did a fresh install of windows 10 myself for my 17r2. My girlfriend bought the 15 with ssd boot drive and it was very slow considering how much the price was increased. You can get a better ssd yourself for cheaper.

 

Doing it with the recovery disk still adds a bunch of bloatware and other bs. Just use the one from the Microsoft website. You would be surprised how much quicker the computer starts up and runs without all that extra bs

 

Here is my 3dmark score stock 970m with no OC

Fire strike 1.1
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10153638?

 

Looks good when comparing it against 970M results on notebookcheck.net, CPU score is pretty healthy too!

 

So Dell said that they had no ETA for the back-order (makes sense, as the components are soldered on, and most people who pony up for the 8GB GTX 980M GPU probably also get the Core i7-6820HK CPU, but I had to settle for the Core i7-6700HQ because of the wacky Black Friday deals they were offering), and suggested that I could instead opt for a full replacement or refund.

I decided to go for the full replacement, since the 1080p LCD panel also has a stuck pixel. Dell came back almost a week later with an in-production order for a laptop with a Core i7-6820H CPU, 128GB m.2 SSD (in addition to the 1TB SATA HDD), and an XBox 360 controller upgrade added in (must have been meant to be a retail-packaged laptop?), but only Windows 10 Home (I had paid for Pro!). Doh!

Dell said they'd need to fix it but putting in a whole new order, so almost another week went by (I've now been using the defective laptop for around 3 weeks; fortunately even the Intel GPU is better than the 8700GT in my old XPS M1730!). I just got the new order list today, and it has the same upgrades but Windows 10 Pro, so I'm super-excited!

I think I'll keep the 128GB SSD as the boot drive and swap my SATA Samsung 850 EVO with the mechanical 1TB SATA HDD for games, since the Samsung SATA SSD is probably slower than the Dell m.2 SSD. Hopefully most games won't have a problem running off of a D: drive these days?

TL;DR: 3 weeks with gimped laptop, but Dell is sending a replacement with nice upgrades.

 

So I finally got around to getting my R3 setup (was living off the R2 because I didn't have time to get all the data off it). Not sure if I mentioned this before, but my situation was like this....

Ordered AW17 R2 from outlet. (4700, 16gb, 128ssd, 1tb, 1080p TOUCHSCREEN, 980m). Came with dead pixels and bad bad backlight bleed. Talked to support to get an exchange. They had none so they sent me a new one instead... R3 4820, 16gb, 128ssd, 1tb, 1080p matte , 980m 4gb. I was kinda disappointed I got a nontouch, but after using it... it is better in practice, no smudges, no glare, and better battery life. Also with the newer and upgraded cpu and thunderbolt... I figured don't complain. Either way, ended up paying about 1200 OTD for the computer and could not be happier. It has replaced my x51r2 desktop (which was great and I would totally get again if I needed a desktop) and for those rare occasions that I need to leave the house with a laptop... its not too bad to lug around.

I ended up running firestrike and here is my result:
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7111446 (Factory settings). How does it stack up? From what I have seen its eh.... I kinda expected more on the CPU side, but not bad for stock settings. Isn't the CPU supposed to be overclocked from the factory though? I had some background monitoring stuff running and it was showing only about 40% cpu use. Not sure how accurate the monitoring software is, but eh.

I have the stock 128gb m.2 in there, a 256 C100 2.5 drive in the hdd bay, a samsung 850 pro m.2 in the other m.2 slot. I have the 2.5 c100 as my boot (switched from the dell 128gb because I was getting really slow boot times). My games are on the m.2 and the run great. I wish that the R3 had 4 m.2 slots like the R2, but the way m.2 prices are going down, it won't be long until 1tb or 512 drives are affordable and I would just then swap out the 128gb to a 512gb.

 

I hope the Dell 128GB isn't slow. Windows 10 boots more or less instantly on my SATA 850 EVO, which isn't the newest SSD out there.

 

if its the same 128 I have, its nothing special... standard m.2. I know dell does offer a pcie version of the m.2, but the one in mine was a standard sata m.2

 

Does anyone has a problem of dropping frame rate during games?


For example, playing witcher 3 with the 980M with NVIDIA recommended setting, 60fps as usual, but after 20mins the fps drops to 20 and after 5min goes back to 60 and on and on...

Noticed that playing bf4 as well

 

4gb or 8gb 980m? I have the 4gb and played BF Hardline for about 1 hour and had no frame dropping issues. I did have that happen when I was using the graphics amplifier and a R9 290 but that was due to heat seeing as the amp box is not exactly blower friendly and the 290 is possibly one of the hottest cards in the last 3 years. WIth that said, the fact that it goes back to 60 after some time, I would think its not a heat issue and more of a driver issue. I would start by completely uninstalling the nvidia drivers and downloading and installing fresh ones from nvidia. It could be cooling, but usually it won't go back up after its thoroughly heated up.

 

Hi anyone know how can i overclock my nvidia 980m 4gb ? Aw17r3. Wanna enjoy im 4k gaming at 60 fps mainly wartander its 35-55 now all max settings far more than movie settings xD

 

1. Download msi afterburner and either unigine heaven or valley or 3d mark firestrike
2. Run a benchmark and record down your score (to see how much improvement you got)
3. Increase power limit to maximum and prioritize temperature limit.
4. Increase clock speed by 150 (most maxwell gpus won't crash).
5. Increase memory clock by 200.
6. steadily increase the clock speed by small interval, e.g. 5 mhz.
7. After every increase, re-run the benchmark and see if it crashes or has any artifacts.
8. If it's still stable, keep increasing the clock speed slowly while keep re run the benchmark until it crashes, then dial back the clock speed by 10~15mhz for stability.
9. Do the same for memory clock speed.
10. After getting your finalized clock speeds, leave the benchmark for 1 hour looping, if it doesn't crash, then you're good.
Monitor the temperature as you don't want your pc to overheat.
Don't really recommend overvoltage if you're not experienced with overclocking as a wrong move means bye-bye to your pc.

 

Thanks alot ill try . are those clock speed that you are using?

 

Tnx alot ill try. Are those oc numbers you are using?

 

On my MSI Afterburner, the limit for clock is set at +135??

 

forgot to mentioned i flashed prema's vbios mod, enabled higher clock speed than 135

 

Bummer, no modded vbios for 8GB GTX 980M.

 

What is everyone getting for battery life on the R3? For some reason I feel like I am getting worse battery life on the R3 vs the R2 with specs being the same (well the r2 had touchscreen which should have a negative impact on the battery).

When away from the wall I run in balanced power with my nvidia settings to divert to intel integrated always (aka turned off the nvidia card completely).

 

Ill

Need to change bios because 135 clock speed and memory 200 isnt enough to see differance.

 

I've managed that problem enabling the performance mode in the BIOS, not overclocking. Performance mode to the fan as well. The problem the fan is really loud all the time, but at least I solved the frame rate dropping problem

 

Yikes. I have mine set to performance mode, but not on the fans. Yes it gets loud when gaming... like I need good headphones loud... but to have that sound all the time would be brutal. I take it you are on the most recent bios?

 

I just finished running the benchmark and here are my scores.. btw I cant find or I don't know where to compare this score.. do you have any ideas if this is a normal score? if my laptop/gpu is performing as it should?? I'm sorry I'm just a newbie hahaha.. thanks man.

 

I'm getting 39-48fps with all post processing set to maximum and high graphic setting except for foliation @ medium.. btw can you also run firestrike 1.1 on your system and see if we have close scores?? I posted mine just above this comment.. thanks man.

 

It looks ok, the Graphics Score is just a little low with 7500 points being average score for a 970M; you have 7201, so you're only 4% off the target. I can't remember if you're using the 240W power adapter, if not I'd try & get one from Dell, they should be able to offer you them for free as one of the Dell reps said that 240W adapters would be delivered on request after it was shown that performance was slightly substandard with 180W power bricks. (Although, having said that, that might have just been applicable to the more power hungry 980M, but search for details in this thread if you're curious.)

Here's a load of benchmark results and other information about your 970M for your future reference so you can compare benchmark & game performance in the future:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html

 

That's why you need to change bios so that you can clock higher than 135 and 200 to see difference.
(seriously with + 135 you're already running a few frames higher in benchmarks)

 

ohh I see. do you think its because of the version of the NVidia driver I am now? I'm currently using the latest driver which is 361.43. are there previous versions which is optimal for gaming? ill try to call dell once the warranty is transferred to me and ask them if I can have a 240W power brick though when I was searching before. 180W is enough for a 970m gpu.
that 4% might be also the reason that's why when I'm comparing my fps to those posted gameplays in the youtube I usually get 5-10fps lower.. I don't know if that's it or its just my imagination haha.
are there any other things to to, install to make sure I'm running my unit optimally?

 

The latest NVidia drivers won't decrease performance, and certainly not by 4% that we talked about, so I don't think it's that. I think like I said in one of my previous posts - you probably want to use GPUz to monitor your clock frequencies & temperatures when actually gaming to see if you're getting the clock speeds & temperatures that you should. You should be seeing a consistent core clock of 1038Mhz (max boost clock) on your 970M during gaming. Run some CPU benchmarks to run some comparisons with your CPU, use the following link to compare your results:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-6700HQ-Notebook-Processor.149420.0.html

 

I got 34421 on octane 2.0 benchmark as opposed to 36173.4 average score based on notebook check. does this help? ive monitored my gpu and it stays @ 1037.something while gaming.

 

I don't know much about Octane, so don't know if it's a good benchmark that really stresses all cores of the CPU, but you're only 5% lower than the average in that score, so that's not much difference. (You've made sure you on Windows High Performance Power Plan haven't you.). You could try some other CPU benchmarks too to see how much difference there is. Your GPU frequency sounds fine then - stabalised at max boost, that's good. It looks so far like your laptop is performing fine.

 

yes its all set to maximum performance/high performance in power options. is that different to "Windows High Performance Power Plan"? do you have any suggestions on a reliable gaming benchmarks? so far my only problem is while playing dying light and witcher 3 as compared to videos that I can see In youtube. I can play just cause 2 at a constant 60fps. in dying light its 39-48fps. lowest when the sun just risen. ocassional 50 fps when close ups. in witcher 3 I can get 39-47fps (post processing all at maximum and high preset in graphics options except for foliation which is in medium.

 

Yep, you set it to High Performance in the Power Options for the operating system, so sounds like you've done that already. It's best to test a benchmark within a game because it's easy to compare results then. Any game benchmarks will do, I use Batman Arkham Knight, Batman Arkham Origins, Metro Last Light, F1 2012, Tomb Raider - just anything with a benchmark program within the game. You can then compare the benchmark results at this same website: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html , that's a link I gave you before, it's got all the game benchmark results towards the bottom of that page.

 

It looks like I have the least scores for 970m. Is something wrong with my laptop? I have checked the frequencies with GPU-Z. Everything seemed fine. Any suggestions?
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10145781?
3d Mark Fire Strike 1.1:
6062
Graphics Score
6784
Physics Score
9582
Combined Score
2581

 

In the nvidia control panel, check if the power management is set to adaptive. If yes, set it to max performance.

Regards,
Mark

 

Yes everything is set to high performance. In battery, nvidia control panel as well as command center.

 

I did disk defrag and cleaned up the system a bit using Auslogics disk defrag and Boost speed. Now my score shows:

Overall score:
6472
Graphics Score
7309
Physics Score
9748
Combined Score
2739
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10229676?

These numbers are just meaningless I guess. We should be comparing actual fps.

 

Disk defrag & Auslogics Boost Speed shouldn't have increased your Graphics Score - strange. You were talking about battery in your previous post - make sure you're gaming when plugged into the mains electricity through the power brick - gaming on battery will give you greatly reduced scores. All advice I gave to SlashNLennon in this thread over the last few pages would be applicable to you too.

 

overlocked GPU (+150mhz on core clock + 400mhz on memory clock) + undervolted CPU+ reduced clocks of my cpu
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10250766
Overall score:
7433
Graphics Score
8758
Physics Score
8336
Combined Score
3236


overlocked GPU(+150mhz on core clock + 400mhz on memory clock) + undervolted CPU+ overlocked CPU
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10250911
Overall score:
7544
Graphics Score
8798
Physics Score
9183
Combined Score
3230

 

Awesome! But how much difference did you notice in fps while gaming? Can you say before and after fps of any popular game?

 

i noticed that only the GPU overlock is a good deal.. really cool temperatures and an amazing gain on performance ... let me take some pictures