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

Robbo99999,

So where are your cooler fans located in relation to your internal fans, are they perfectly aligned? What is the cfm rate of your cooler?

I'm just trying to ascertain your cooling efficiency

 

I've aligned as best I can, the path of the air is 'indirect' in any case as the air takes a path from the cooler fans through to the holes in the laptop cooler (Zalman NC-2000). The dust collects in the laptop cooler rather than in the fans of the laptop, so it's useful from that point of view even if I get the same results from just propping up back of laptop, less of a ghetto solution too & looks better & more ergonomic to type on.

 

Robbo99999,

Someone here using the same cooler as you and getting 10c lower temperatures. Perhaps the fans are more closely aligned on their system?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-15-4”-smackdown-zalman-nc1000-vs-nc2000-detailed.281575/

 

Possibly, it doesn't matter though because my GPU during gaming is 63-70 degC depending on room temperature and game, and my CPU also during gaming sits in the same temperature range.

 

Temperatures vary due to many factors. Even the environmental temp can affect it, and also the BIOS. I'd say it's normal to see some differences.

 

Alienware-L_Porras,

Very true, although many people are reporting circa 10c drops using cooling pads, for me it's a case of what's possible rather than an averaging it out and saying it's 'normal'. We tweak CPU, GPU etc, so why not tweak the cooling pad? Perhaps AW could produce a cooling pad that had a Peltier in it to negate the ambient temperature? If the laptop cooling fans are good enough then maybe it's a case of removing the warm air faster from around the laptop, rather than trying to force more air in?

I shall be giving a cooling pad a try anyway as they aren't expensive (certainly not in comparison to my 17 R3 QHD with 2 EVO PRO 950 512GB SSD's!) and I'll report my findings here

 

It's better if Dell design their gaming laptops to fit better internal cooling. Stop using shared heatsink, heat pipes and design bigger heatsink.

 

But Dell can never base cooling design on what a geek might overclock a laptop to. Not everyone needs a massive heatsink (big heatsink = bigger laptop, the AW 17 R3 is big enough already!). They know that 'some' of their customers overclock so it would be nice if they offered an AW designed cooling pad that did some 'serious' cooling.

 

Dell advertise their Aw gaming laptops with a processor that can be overclocked. Therefore should the cooling be adapted to this.

 

Yes and it can be, to the AW stated 4.1ghz using the cooling provided. Those geeks that might want to try pushing it up and up to 4.5ghz or more, they will surely need the extra cooling I am suggesting. Not everyone wants to try hitting more that the stated ghz, the extra cooling would be an add-on product for those that do.

 

As expected the laptop hasn't arrived today, but the two 512GB SSD's have

 

Very nice! You're going to love that set up...

I have a cooler for one of my 17R3 at the office and it does wonders. I like that it has an aluminum surface to distribute heat more effectively and that it has bigger holes than other coolers. It's called pwr+ for 17" laptops. The air also seems to effectively go into where it needs to go. Again, the big holes and aluminum surface is what made me choose this over the others. It also has a nice blue led light and the fans are very quiet.



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Looks good

Are the fans movable?

 

This is a big un! 230mm fan, 89.8 cfm. Looks cool too.

http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/notepal-series/notepal-xl/

One test where it knocked over 10c off laptop temperatures. This is the kind of performance I'm looking for.

"Without a cooler, the Dell Inspiron 15R SE's hottest spots were on the bottom of the notebook, in the upper middle as well as the lower left, both of which measured 94 degrees. With the X3, the upper middle was only 81 degrees and the lower left 83 degrees."
http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/accessories/cooler-master-notepal-x3

And a review off Amazon that's very relevant here.

"I've been using the Cooler Master Notepal XL for quite some time now to keep my Alienware 17 temps down while working in 3d modelling applications, Unreal Engine 4, and while gaming. Overall I am impressed, without the cooling pad under high load my laptop regularly sees temps of 90c+, with the cooling pad I see average high load temps of around 80c. May not seem like a huge difference, but that 10c makes a huge difference when it comes to working in 3d"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/reviews/B00EHHGEZ2/ref=cm_cr_dp_mb_see_rcnt?ie=UTF8&s=sd

 

They are stationary, but big and effective as the fans cover most of the pad.

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Hi iunlock,

I am new to this particular thread and I was wondering if there was any way I could PM you as I have looked through the available options yet either I'm missing it or it's just not unfortunately available?

Thank you kindly,
SD

 

If you put a piece of paper over the fans will the the paper stay flat over the fans or will it blow off? The one I have seems to be a little lower then advertised as the paper simply stays flat against the fans even though it had one of the higher cfm's that I looked at

 

sounds like the fans may be pulling air instead of pushing it.

 

Upside down fans, Ooooo-er!!

 

For those who are buying cooling racks in search of 10c improvement (a goal I support), I should mention that I got that same 10c just from raising the back end of the laptop. Watching XTU while a full cpu render chugged along, I could get 10c improvement and decline pretty much immediately as I raised or lowered the back.

Further, I'm quite skeptical that meaningful airflow can be induced through the mesh patterns on the one-size-fits-all racks. Yes, fan placement is crucial, but I think you'd be better off cutting out the grids or mesh above your fans once you've got them placed.

Lastly, has anyone looked at the little vacuum fans that mate to the outflow vents and the rear of the laptop? Pulling air is always going to be more efficient than pushing it.

 

I saw a few posts recently in the P35x thread where someone had bought two of those suction style vacuum fans - one for each of the CPU/GPU outlets - he saw massive decrease in temperatures 15 or 20 degC if I recall.

 

Hi John,

I shall of course be testing this when I get my AW and before buying a cooling pad. I will of course have it set at 4.1ghz if possible and I will have the two 950 PRO installed (they will throttle if they go past 75c and I don't want that so I might need more cooling just for them if I overclock it).

Looking at the way the vents are set out on the AW17 R3 there is a very large area of vents underneath where air goes in (only in?) but only two much smaller exhaust vents on the back where hot air comes out (no cold going into these?), so I am wondering if there is a restriction on air flow caused by the two smaller exhaust vents? If that appears to be the case when I test mine, then I will build my own cooling pad, it would have two 80mm 100 cfm+ extracting fans, one for each exhaust vent, to pull the hot air faster from the case, with a lip on the outside to ensure the hot air blows upwards and away from the air that is going into the laptop.

Blowing air in is not much use if it can't get out of the case quick enough, as we all know, efficient cooling is about removing the hot air as quickly as possible, not blowing more cold air on something. If a cooling pad is blowing air in and that air is not flowing cleanly away, then no wonder people don't see a huge difference with some cooling pads. With the cooling pads that have movable fans, if you locate one fan over the CPU and the other over the GPU, but the air flow is restricted by the two small exhaust vents, then the air would likely escape back through the middle portion of the intake vents, which would not be much use because the warmer air can then be sucked straight back in by the fans. My idea for an air exhaust booster would get round this.

As I say, I will be experimenting so the above is just observation for now.

EDIT, paths crossed with Robbo99999 as I was typing

 

No its not I have checked. The paper just kind of shimmys and you can definitely feel air moving. It is supposed to be 74 cfm but I am highly doubting it.

 

sluggz,

Is it being powered by USB from the laptop?

 

I agree. Not all laptop fans are created equal so it's important to choose one that is practical.

The vacuum puller is something that I've always been interested in and still am, however, I'm curious how well it'll hold in place on the rear of the AW as those vacuum fans are usually designed for the side of the laptop where it can clamp securely.

My repaste alone gives me anywhere from -10C to -20c (yes really) in temp drops and I believe the laptop cooler that I have is doing an efficient job in supplying good air flow. I'll get some concrete numbers in Stock idle temps with and without the fan by itself.



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Most of the vacuum fans don't actually hook to the laptop. Rather, they come with a variety of rubber (silicone) adapters that abutt around the exit vent. The fans are about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and it would seem fairly easy to rig up an attachment to the cooler rack. I even considered simply using a standard computer fan and some slinky tubing. It would look wanky but it might work.

Regarding the 950 pro: as I understand it the drive will self-throttle when it gets too hot, so cooling is crucial. I had a look at the m.2 area and it seems to me that if you really wanted cooling there you could cut or drill holes in the case cover. On the 17 the m.2s are 100% under the removable cover. Main issue here as I see it is whether by opening additional vents there, will that disrupt the factory airflow profile enough to cause MORE heat somewhere else?

I can see how a good repaste would get results, it's just an awfully scary proposition. The only thing I've pasted was a 2" Xeon on a zif. Not quite the same!

 

Hi John,

I have seen several instances where 950 owners have affixed heatsinks and in some cases then added micro fans to the 950's IC's. The biggest IC gets the hottest and some have found that a heatsink and micro fan on that is all that's required even with overclocking.

 

I've been doing this with my desktop, using VMs to host BBS software, Debian build environments, etc. I've also been getting a lot of use out of an even older desktop (2006?) that's been running Xubuntu since around 2008 (wow, time flies!).

 

I found this fan by using the filters on the site, firstly to get a fan no bigger dimensionally, and to get a high cfm without huge decibels. I would put one of these in front of each exhaust vent to suck the hot air out. I would design the pad so that noise from these is minimised. I'm still looking for similar one's with 100 cfm+, but if not these will do as first base.

80mm, 84.16 cfm. 12v so I would buy a power block and one of the fan controllers on the site.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/axial-fans/0126464/

 

New Intel HD GPU driver released:
http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=09G71

 

Well I unfortunately cannot find any way to PM a member so I will kindly ask this to everyone in the grateful forum & thread in hopes someone will graciously respond.

I had a MacBook Pro 15 with retina and I re-jumped back to the PC ship and presently have a DELL XPS 15 9530 with the 3200 x 1800 display with about 5 months remaining on its warranty, and I’m really strongly considering on getting an Alienware 17R w/4K, yet before I would, I’d really appreciate if one of you would kindly answer some questions for me?

I know this sounds just absolutely crazy asking this in a gaming thread when I in fact do not game at all, yet I also know that gamers look for great graphics as well, so who better to ask then you owners of an Alienware 17r 4K?

OK; I do allot of photo editing and would kindly like to know if I would in fact see any noticeable difference in zooming in on HD photos between my present 3200 x 1800 vs 4K, which you know every photo editor definitely wants and looks for?

Having my DELL XPS 15 3200 x 1800 display makes me unfortunately fully aware of the dreadful and infamous scaling issues, yet I also firmly believe that in time the software will eventually correct itself and quite honestly, I am unfortunately not to particularly happy with its keyboard and was thinking that a Alienware 17R might be just what I need?

I was in fact looking @ the XPS 15 9550 w/4K display yet from what I have read the keyboard isn’t any better than the 9530 and some even say it is unfortunately even worse.

Thank you kindly,
SD

 

SD,

I'm getting the 17 R3 to use with astrophotography photo editing and image stacking, also for 4k video editing and when I'm not doing that I'll use it for some gaming.

The 4k screen is perfect for 4k video editing and watching, the 3200 x 1800 isn't. HD photo zooming isn't going to be much different I would have thought, being that it's no higher resolution than either screen. The benefit for me is the 100% RGB and 100% Adobe RGB, so images will be displayed perfectly on the AW (it will need calibration though), I doubt that's the case on the XPS 15 as in my research the AW 17 was the only laptop at this price with that level of RGB.

Further back on here I posted a link to a screen profile that someone had shared, to save us calibrating our screens, it should be spot on or pretty close.

 

JerseyBoy,

Thank you so much for such a super quick, detailed and kind response as it is very greatly appreciated.

I don't unfortunately do any video editing strictly photos and although I really didn't believe that the 4K display would show any noticeable difference in strictly photo editing, as some people have been saying it will and obviously leading me wrong, I still felt that maybe the 17R would not only give me the capabilities of having the 4K and much better GPU if ever needed, with hopefully an all around greater and more accurate RGB as well, yet I also was hoping that its keyboard would be much better than the one on the XPS 15 9530 which I greatly need and prefer?

I may be also wrong yet I am also believing that jumping from 15" to 17" should also be a great benefit as well?

Thanks,
SD

 

SD,

One reason I'm going 17" instead of 15" is eyesight. I wear spectacles and I find bigger screens cause less eye strain. 4k quality will also reduce eye strain. 4k on 15" is not for me as everything will be too small despite the option of Windows scaling. 4k on 17" is going to be great.

"I really didn't believe that the 4K display would show any noticeable difference in strictly photo editing, as some people have been saying it will and obviously leading me wrong"

But as I say, the 4k 17" panel will make a lot of difference due to the perfect RGB reproduction, I think it's well worth the extra £250 over the HD option. A lot of gamers prefer the HD because it suits the games, but that's not me or you. ;-)

There's a bit here about the keyboard and screen. Using the keyboard all the time we would quickly get used to it.

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/alienware-17

 

One can also place thermal pads on the m.2's, which have been effective in lowering the temp by a good amount.

There is also a copper plate you can make contact with under the m.2 using thermal pads to distribute the heat.

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I work side by side my MBP Retina, i Mac and my 17R3 4K and the AW does a great job with my photo editing. I'd highly recommend the 17" screen over the 15" if you're able. The color production on the AW is great and it does what it needs to as good as my Macs....I actually use both my iMac screen and AW to view the images before finalizing as I prefer the glass / gloss display over the matte, but you'll be happy with the AW.

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yes

 

Sluggz,

OK, can you check to see if it's getting enough power that way? (faulty USB?), maybe plug it into a desktop, a powered USB hub, or a phone charger block if you have one with the right connector?

 

So now I've found this beast of an 80mm cooling fan as an option for the exhaust vent booster.

112cfm!! (the vacuum devices mentioned here are 75cfm)

One of these on each exhaust vent should nail any overclocking heat.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/axial-fans/0557783/

Not cheap, but if they save the laptop from damage and possibly increase its longevity then it's not going to be a bad price to pay.

On the subject of cooling the 950 SSD's when overclocking I had another brainwave. If I build a cooling pad with the aforementioned fans, I could remove the laptop underside cover and have a fan in the cooling pad blowing air over the SSD's. If it's on the cooling pad there's no real need to have the cover panel in place. It only takes a second to put the panel back on if I'm taking the laptop somewhere else.

 

You could end up with a lot of dust in your laptop though.

 

I'll be putting vents along the sides and across the front with filter material over them on the inside to stop dust, I'll plan it so it still has plenty of air flow.

Something like this, but I'll be searching for the best before I buy. There's others at the bottom of the page for starters.
http://www.moddiy.com/products/Premium-Dust-Filter-Material-(50cm-x-40cm-x-3mm)-.html

Also with the cover off it will cool the memory and a SATA drive if I install one. A win-win-win

 

How's this for my first design of an Alienware 17 R3 stylee cooler pad?

 

That filter material might work quite well when air is sucked through (in the style of a car air filter), but if you're just blowing air at it in an open environment then I'm not sure how much air will get through, I suppose you can test it by holding your hand behind the filter material to see what force of air gets through. (On a second look just now it is quite an open mesh to that filter material, might be ok, you can still try it though).

 

Robbo99999, I am thinking the extractor fans are sucking air through, the internal laptop fans are sucking air in the same flow route, so air will be sucked through the filter material all the way. It will of course need testing, but if I put two of the 80mm fans at the back it will be pulling 224cfm at full speed. That air will have to come through the vents and filter material.

 

I never understood laptop cooling pads. What does it do to the lifespan of the laptop's internal fans to have another set of fans blowing or sucking on them?

 

Ah, that will be fine then, I was just thinking that mesh was for the SSD bay - which I thought you'd said you would aim a seperate fan at, that's the bit I was commenting on.

 

Hi Hunter,

You have to look at the way the internal (or infernal in some cases!) fans work, in many cases there is a lot of turbulent hot air and not enough pressure to push the hot air out of the case and away. My design sucks the hot air out of the case and gets rid of it, improving the efficiency of the cooling. With cooling pads that blow from underneath there again will be turbulent hot air unless there is a clear escape route for the hot air, in this case there isn't because the vents at the rear of the 17 R3 are so much smaller than the air intakes underneath.

When BGA chips keep getting too hot it can, over time, affect the quality of the solder blobs. All the heating and cooling of the solder can eventually cause systems to fail, therefore I see a good case for keeping the system as cool as possible. If the internal fans fail they can be replaced, the thing for me to do with my design is to monitor the internal fan speed and ensure I am not overdoing it by forcing it to run too much faster than it's designed speed at full power, that way I may never have an internal fan failure.

Another benefit I have thought of with my design, seeing as it's enclosed it should be OK to run the internal fans in full performance mode all the time, as a lot of the noise will be dampened by being kept inside the cooling pad base.

 

Sucking on them real hard (haha) like those vacuum fans attached to the outlets, they will make the internal fan of the laptop spin faster, so theoretically that could reduce the lifespan of the internal fans, but I've never had a fan fail on any of laptops which I've had for 4-5 years. The cooling pads don't really make your internal fans spin faster, so they wouldn't affect lifespan.

 

Good Morning,

Man talk about failing eyes well I can definitely join & relate with you there and also and unfortunately now that I'm pretty close to 60, I unbelievably just cannot stay up past 9pm any longer, as that is about the time I usually need to go make love to my pillow.

I want to thank you so much for the gracious & grateful link, which I just completed, and it just seems that keyboards is purely on an individual like or not basis, as this reviewer unfortunately did not give it such stellar grades at all, yet unless you graciously have another alternative or suggestion I still believe that the Alienware 17R would be a much better experience and choice than I can think of or come up with.

As you said, the 4K and GPU will be a great thing to have if I ever decide to do any video editing in the future and it definitely cannot hurt doing my photo editing with as well and I honestly do agree with you that going from my present 15" display to 17" display has to be even easier on my eyes unless I am greatly missing something?

Thanks a BUNCH,
SD

 

Hi iunlock,

Thank you so much for this gracious & grateful response as it is very greatly appreciated.

This was the exact reason why I was wanting to PM you as I seen your computers in your signature with unbelievably having not only a AW 17R yet a MacBook Pro 15 Retinal and iMac as well yet also the way you so graciously help out others!

Having the MacBook Pro w/Retina and now the DELL XPS 15 9530 w/QHD I was just concerned if I would get better or worse results with the AW 17R Matte display, as I honestly never had one before.

Here I would've honestly believed that the iMac would be leaps & bounds above anything else for photo editing yet the fact that you have your AW 17R side by side and do in fact do final comparisons with the AW also, is just very impressive to me and has me greatly convinced as well.

Thanks a BUNCH,
SD