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

The lite on is m.2 sata based ssd is it not?

 

Yes, M.2 but limited to SATA speeds.

 

This is a little odd and I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to get the full nvidia control panel with more then just the 3d settings. Is this normal with the r3. It is just like having a desktop graphics card and all the nvidia control panel settings associated with it

 

Can you post a screenshot? What driver version are you running?

 

I thought all that gets disabled because of optimus. So you can set custom resolutions and refresh rates?

 

driver is 369.91

 

not sure how to do screenshots but this is an attempt

 

This is also running an hdmi to my 27 inch 1440p. I was not aware I get 144 hz at 1440p with an hdmi either

 

Yea, its kind of awesome

 

I think it may be possible to bypass the Intel GPU when you have an external monitor connected. I've heard that people lost access to their built-in screen when disabling the Intel driver in Device Manager, but that they were able to get an external monitor to work long enough to re-enable the Intel driver.

 

I didn't disable though and always had access to my built in screen

 

I'm getting very slow write speeds with my new Alienware 17 R3's SSD. It's a Samsung NVMe PM951.

I cannot get a sequential write speed > 150 MB/s.

As per some suggestions, I tried to install the driver for 950 Pro NVMe SSD ("Samsung NVM Express Driver 1.1.exe"). However, I'm getting the following error:
"Samsung NVM Express Device is not connected. Connect the Device and try again".

Any suggestions / thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Isn't the PM951 "supposedly" a 950 pro? That's some seriously slow read, and abysmal write speeds. Something is up. Even if you put it into the 2 channel slot it shouldn't be that slow for sequential.

 

No, the SM951 is the closest you'll get to a 950 Pro bar owning one.

These are my PM951 speeds in slot 2 (X2)


This is my SM951 in slot 1 (X4)

 

I'm having the same issue. I'll let you know if I figure it out.

Speaking of my issue - I'm pretty shocked at Dell's service. I put in an RMA because the lights on my lid were not working. I was expecting to have it in for repair for a week or so but then customer service called me back a couple hours later and told me they would rather just exchange the unit. They said it would take 15 days to ship one out to me and just 24 hours later one shows up on my doorstep. Not only that, they sent me a model with a 256GB NVMe in addition since they didn't have any of my model in stock.

Is this typical of them? If so, wow. I've always heard bad things about Dell in the past...

 

They replaced my one year old r2 that constantly throttled with a r3 6820hk, 980m 8gb, 4k uhd screen, and threw in the 500 gb nvme all for free. Feeling kind of like I won the lottery

 

Well, I fixed it .. temporarily. Using msconfig, I setup to boot into Safe Mode.
In BIOS, I changed from RAID to AHCI, booted into Safe Mode, and installed the Samsung driver for 950 Pro.
Then rebooted and was able to get the faster write speed. Also, in Device Manager / Devices, I saw the Samsung driver as the controller.
However, upon subsequent restart, the Notebook failed to boot (HD unrecognized).
So, I booted back via setting back to RAID in BIOS. However, the write speed is back to being slow and Device Manager / Devices shows MS storage, not Samsung.

I'd like to try this fix, but I can't locate the registry entry for msahci.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/new-m17x-r3-blue-screens-when-in-ahci-mode.643843/

Also, I'm not sure if booting via AHCI will support both the drives (SSD and 7200RPM HD).

 

What write speeds were you getting in safe mode? I was able to get 300 MB/s after a bios update, windows update and pretty much every update on Dell's website. I couldn't pinpoint which one did it but I have a feeling it was the bios update.

Also, I've never been able to boot in AHCI. I've always gotten a bsod.

 

I think you have to reinstall Windows or tweak the registry if you change from RAID to AHCI. See the following thread for how you make the changes to Windows 7 to make the change to AHCI: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=313676
I don't know if Windows 10 can be tweaked in such a way, you could do a search for it though, or just try it.

EDIT: I was curious anyway, so googled it, this is how someone was able to change to AHCI in Windows 10, different than the method for Windows 7, but apparently the same as Windows 8.1:
http://www.tenforums.com/drivers-ha...-ahci-mode-after-windows-10-installation.html

EDIT 2: Actually, I think the following link is probably the most reliable, and it's also a different method too: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22631-ahci-enable-windows-8-windows-10-after-installation.html

 

They couldnt repair my unit after a technician screwed up and gave me an upgrade from a 970 to a 980, 128gb ssd to a 256gb ssd and double the ram.

 

I'll try one of those tonight if I get time. So is everybody else having these same issues and just living with it? I thought I read better benchmarks from others on the forum but I can't believe that everyone is having to jump through hoops to get decent speeds out of their SSD.

I had this same thing happen on the Razer Blade Stealth but just chalked it off to a crappy SSD. I'd like to give that a second look now too...

 

You still haven't said what port your SSD is in, it sounds like port 2.

 

Mine is in the SSD1 bay on the left like in this picture: http://www.computershopper.com/var/...-eng-US/alienware-15-2015-interior-access.jpg

I know it's a AW 15 but you get the idea

 

I've been doing a little more research and I think the culprit is the Samsung driver being in conflict with something. I'm guessing IRST or something else in Win10 is preventing the Samsung driver from recognizing the drive. There are a lot of threads that have the exact same issue and were all resolved from Samsung's new drivers. Unfortunately I cannot even install those drivers so I'll have to play around with stuff until I can get it to work. I have a feeling I'm just going to have to reinstall Windows.

 

nm, I'm barking up the wrong tree. I've been looking up the wrong part number for benchmark comparisons all this time and apparently the drive I have is as good as it's supposed to be.

PM951
http://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...LV256HCHP?ia=831&CID=AFL-hq-mul-0813-11000170

 

Booting off safe mode / AHCI, I was getting 280 MB/s for write, which is way better than what I'm getting with RAID.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, that's the write speeds I'm getting and what the actual specs are. Is irst installed on your machine? Have you updated your bios too?

 

I gave up and clean installed windows 10 via AHCI (in BIOS). BIOS was the latest: 1.2.7. I then installed Samsung NVME driver for 950 Pro, as advised by some folks, although my drive is PM951 (as MS nvme driver wasn't giving me write speeds > 150). And yes, IRST is installed (although it's more for RAID than AHCI).

Here's the strange part:
Laptop booted fine from a shut down state. However, it would not boot via a restart (could not find boot drive).

I then reverted back to the OLD BIOS (1.2.2). And all is fine now: Restarts properly and I'm getting the fast write speeds.

 

I uninstalled IRST because someone suggested if might have been the problem when I was getting 150MB/s speeds. Unfortunately I did that and 3 other things at the same time so I couldn't confirm it was the culprit.

Glad to see you got it figured out though. So you're getting around 300 now?

 

Yup, around 300 with the old BIOS on AHCI.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Is that just with the stock ssd? Ive had 950 pro swapped since I got mine, still in raid so no drivers or Samsung magician software, the how to and fix came well after I first got mine.

But I've had 2500 reads and 1500 writes with mine, old and new bios versions. Speed didn't change.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

Yeah, is the stock one. Not a fan but it's better than a hdd.

 

Alright. Never a fan of most manufacturer included ssd's. Dell and Lenovo are always horribly slow, at least Alienware includes top end oem Samsung m. 2 drives. Can't blame Alienware to much on speeds and things.
Do know that oem ones always read write slower, but they're rated better for longevity if that's even a problem now a days.
But yes, ultimately, even slow, better than hhd. And if you need the speed, then buy it I guess. That's what I did without even knowing how good or bad the stock drive was. I knew I wanted speed and had a 950 pro ready before I even got the laptop.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

Just got a ThinkPad 14 to replace my sp3. 256gb ssd very slow, and usually small for what I have in my laptops. But boots quick enough, better than hhd for battery, and for a 2 in 1, ssd has no moving parts so I can whip this thing all over the place and not worry.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

Sorry if this is common knowledge but can a regular SATA ssd work in the m.2 slots, one like this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-250GB-850-EVO-SATA/dp/B00TGIVZTW/ I'm not after blazing speed just want a relatively cheap drive to try installing Linux on.

 

If by "regular SATA SSD" you mean a 2.5" SSD with a SATA connector, then no.

If you mean a SATA-based m.2 SSD, then yes. The OEM m.2 SSD that Dell included with my 17 R3 is SATA-based.

 

What you linked will work just fine.

 

Thank you for the Advice! I improvised but I will have to get the proper screws! I finally was able to do a clean install of windows on my 950 pro ssd. Strangely initially I was getting a boot time of about 9 seconds but after I did some ssd optimization, ( Turned off restore points, page file and Hibernation) suddenly I am in the 30 seconds range plus my read score went from 2290 to about 1809. Any input or advice? I have the 256 GB model.

 

Why would you disable System Restore? Why would that affect read performance?

 

Hi HunterZ0! Well I am going by the advise of the SSD Review. A site who has been at the forefront of testing and working with SSD of all type. From their experience it has shown that if you keep System Restore on you are most likely going to get a degradation of performance of your SSD. Their readers have backed them up on that by the thousands!
Also, I did through the command prompt re-activate Hibernation, and now my boot time is back to 9 seconds. Strange!

 

"DELETED"

 

"DELETED"

 

Hi HunterZ0! Well I am going by the advise of the SSD Review. A site who has been at the forefront of testing and working with SSD of all type. From their experience it has shown that if you keep System Restore on you are most likely going to get a degradation of performance of your SSD. Their readers have backed them up on that by the thousands!
Also, I did through the command prompt re-activate Hibernation, and now my boot time is back to 9 seconds. Strange!

 

I think the Hibernation file is related to 'Fast Start-up', a feature of Windows 10 whereby Windows startup time is reduced - so if you'd disabled hibernation that would have erased the file that was necessary for Fast Start-up.

 

Yes! That makes sense! Do you think the file is back back by reversing the command prompt to "on'? Also, how do I remove a reply which showed

 

My reply posted three times due to slow internet! How do I remove? Also can someone tell me how I can insert my System information on this box? Sorry, fairly new as active member of this forum!

 

Yep, when you type in the powercfg command to reactivate hibernation it creates the hibernation file again.

I don't think you can delete your own posts, a moderator can do that though - in the meantime you could Edit your posts and just write *deleted* or something. You're talking about creating a signature: click on your username in top right of screen to enter your profile, then click on Signature on the left of the page, then you can edit the signature that appears below each of your posts.

 

Thank you for your replies Robbo99999! However I followed your instructions to post my System info, I click on my profile name but do not see "Signature on the left of the page"

 

Neither the Dell Update utility nor Dell email notifications bothered to notify me that there's a new Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Driver: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=9XXMN

 

Thank you HunterZ0! Just updated driver in my 17 R3!