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

I gave up on them a year ago.. Using their stuff out of obligation now because they keep on upgrading me to the newest maxed out machines through system exchanges; but it's exhausting. When you've been upgraded as many times as I have been-it looses meaning. Next gaming laptop will be the Clevo machine (no secret they are dominating). This BGA crap and lack of SLI disturbs me, not to mention the worst BIOS ever created for so called high end gaming laptops.... After many years no improvements, just more steps backwards. At this point they'd have to pay me to use their hardware. Massive lack of hardware inspection & quality control with mediocre repairs at best. Tired of squeezing lemonade from a lemon. I will say that their customer service and warranty is exceptional, possibly the best out there, but when the hardware sucks this much & fails this often; that renders the exceptional warranty useless for me. Just give me a proper working machine worth the hard earned $ I pay for it-so I don't have to rely on the warranty. #Honest

 

So I've got a 17 R3 with a 4k screen and when it comes to playing games, I'm obviously not going to want/be able to play everything at 4k. Problem is I'd like to play some games at 2560 x 1440....and for whatever reason it is not an option in Windows or in games. Why is it not an option, and is there a solution?

 

After one of the BIOS updates, the 1440p settings mysteriously disappeared. I too game at 1440p and have my screen at 2560x1600, however, the AW is hooked up to an external 4K monitor so on there I have it at true 1440p.

I think you can add a custom resolution in the Graphics card settings...

 

This discussion has happened over and over....
Clevo is not without its problems.
Their "flagship" system has to be tweaked and configured in such a way to function normal as it throttles out of the box.
The build quality of the case and cosmetics are not up to par. i.e. the lid that houses the LCD is plastic and fairly flimsy compared to AW.
Also the keyboard is less then desirable. Am I an AW fanboy? Far from it. I had my hands on one of those Clevos, I chose not to keep it for a few reasons.
Also that information was reiterated to me by two predominate people in the Clevo community on NBR. One of which stated he wished he didnt buy the system.
In all fairness hes making due and partially happy with it because its a monster.

As far as warranties are concerned Dell has arguably the best warranty in the industry. (next business day parts or next business day on site techs.)
You are not going to get away from part failures in the PC industry as I'm sure you know. Just go pick any company's motherboard or GPU (ASUS, MSI, etc) and go review negative reviews on newegg or amazon. Alot of the complaints are DOA products or failures soon after purchase. Does that mean they suck? No, that's just the nature of mass production of technology.
Clevos also fail; the difference is when they do fail you have to box it up and send it somewhere that the third part reseller has conjured up. Depending on the reseller that can take a long time.

So with all that said there is no perfect system or maker out there. It call comes down to personal preference on the lesser of multiple evils you want to deal with.
I personally want a 17" that is the smallest it can be for the power and still cool decently.
Currently the 17R3 is fairly small compared to previous gens.
Looks decent. Has a sturdy lid. Plus if a part fails they will overnight a part to me for me to replace, or if im lazy, they will send a guy to do it for me.
Some people might want the power of a desktop CPU, and desktop graphics card in their system. Those people might care more about that then the lower quality plastics and build quality of things like the keyboard etc, or that the warranty is not next business day. I personally don't need all that cuz I have a couple decent desktops. Again personal preference.

The build / manufacturing quality of BGA is not less as it seems people like to make it seem. Dell had some wack systems (15R1 & 17R2) that had defects. Because BGA was introduced soon before these systems they naturally blamed BGA. Well Dell in 2009 had a fully sockted, MXM GPU based laptop that also was defective and throttled like crazy then too. Throttling and design flaws are not new to this laptop gaming industry.

BGA is just something people will have to accept and realize that through engineering will be refined and make for some nice looking but powerful systems.
Matter of fact it seems the industry is going in that direction BGA and wont stop fine tuning it. For example there are no mobile Skylakes from Intel that are not BGA, gone are the days of socketed mobile processors from Intel. I wouldn't be surprised if nvidia followed suit eventually and stopped making MXM cards. As the dies are shrinking they are becoming easier to manufacture as one piece, its an evolution of you will. People fear change as typically said but Im all for change so long as they dont screw it up. Believe me if I buy a system and its jacked up I will be one of the people that wont shut up about it. However you wont catch me blaming a specific technology or fanboying up to say one is better then the other when things seem to be fairly equality spread out.

With all the above said I personally will only buy an Alienware or a Clevo.
Just saying'

End rant... now to throw in my hashtag...
#truth

 

I agree with almost every point, especially the crappiest BIOS in the Universe. It's absolutely pathetic. It's okay to keep things simple, I get it, but when they mess up simplicity only to confuse the user even more, that's retarded. Ex. Boot order menu...what in the crack is that?

IMO every manufacturer has its flaws in one form or another. Yes, it's a given the Clevo's and rebranded brands packing desktop components are going to be ahead in mobile gaming (that's obvious given the hardware), however, Clevo's have their own set of issues as much as AW has theirs. It's not even so much about BGA or the lack of having SLI, what it really boils down to is whether the laptop, whether it be an AW or Clevo, can meet the users needs along with how frequently they upgrade in respect to the countless reasons that exist.

A laptop with desktop components is impressive, but they do come with problems of their own. Thank goodness for Perma....also just because desktop hardware gaming laptops exist, that shouldn't automatically conceive the idea that it is light years ahead of other gaming rigs like AW. Heck for everything that I do I'm pretty happy it the 6820HK and 980M. The gap isn't huge and if you factor in the performance per cost against the benchmarks for example...it's not like you see a light year difference. Plus, no matter what the results are you have to factor in the fact that the 6820HK runs at half the TDP vs a 6700K and for most gamers who game at 1080p, you can comfortably game without issues with the 980M at half the cost.

Ex. I don't plan to keep my AW forever and I always buy the refresh, given that it's worth while. With the 17R4, I would assume it's safe to say that it'll be a worthy upgrade from the 17R3; especially in my case, because of the type of work that I do on the laptop. - Like most gaming AW'ers I OC the crap out of my CPU and GPU, therefore, I do favor the idea of upgrading my rig instead of keeping the rig and just doing a motor swap on an used and abused chassis (mobo). If and when I do get a socketed mobile gaming rig, I'll be darn sure to have an extended warranty haha...because I'm going to run that beast to the ground.

I would get a desktop packed laptop in a heart beat. Trust me, I'm all for that, but realistically for my needs and my frequency of upgrades, it doesn't make sense for me to pay twice as much to be stuck with a laptop for varies reasons. However, the moment someone comes out with a socketed Skylake + 4K Glass Screen + With good looks for crying out loud....I'll be the first in line to buy one. Believe me.

Yea, Dell's warranty and service is pretty unmatched. On my first 17R3, I had called Tuesday, Return Box w/ Pre Paid Overnight Label arrived Wednesday, they receive it Thursday and I get the laptop back the next day. Just insanely quick. That holds a lot of value right there....

 

Well said. We almost said the exact same thing...how interesting...

Oh and I forgot my hashtag: #I-Don't-Care-If-I'm-Not-The-Fastest-Rig-On-The-Track-Because-I-Can-Hold-My-Own-And-Be-In-Style-Doing-It.

No ugly cars for me...that's just my opinion. *shrug*

 

It's just so funny that an AW18 with an Overclocked unlocked CPU and SLI GPU get higher benchmarks than any AW17R2/3 with AGA and Overclocked Titan X.. That's just retarded.

 

That has nothing to do with BGA. BGA doesnt perform less. The gripe the haters have is that its one board.
You just said 2 mobile nvidia cards in the AW18 (I assume 980m) performing the same as one single Titan X in an AGA is retarded?

That makes no sense....
A 980M gets a passmark score of 5,672. Times that by two and you got 11,334 (roughly).
A Titan X gets a passmark score of 10,842.

So what you said that is retarded, sounds about right for even a normal desktop system with a Titan X battling against your said system.

I fail to see the issue here.

 

The issue is very evident... Much better options/performance in previous generation hardware than in newer technology for significantly less cost and much more reliability at the same time.

Do you find it acceptable that simply flashing a new BIOS on the 17R3 bricks the machine over and over again?? I rely on my laptop for a lot, something like that could cost me much more than I am prepared to loose. We should be complaining to Dellianware to get their stuff together instead of backing them up. As enthusiasts our standards should be higher/met.... But when was the last time Alienware ever listened to their customers and implemented changes into their production based on our requests? NEVER.

You don't see that with Clevo. Just sayin.

 

No I dont...
But again its not like Dell is the first system that has happened to. BIOS bricks have happened to plenty of other systems including Clevo.
Now for me, I have a 17R3 it hasnt happened to me. It happened to iUnlock and he already has it fixed. With Clevo, ASUS, or MSI you have to wait weeks to get your system back after you mailed it.
Windows 10 was causing systems both Clevo and Dell to be bricked. It wasnt happening with other makers or atleast the reports were minimal. One could blame the manufacturers.
Again I really dont think there is a perfect system or company in this industry. If you dont like them you dont like them. However the reasons you have stated thus far really are not Dell exclusive.

As far as production based requests; do you have an example of when they haven't listened? I mean I guess people have been complaining about socketed CPUs and MXM slots.
However as I mentioned before with Intel going only BGA with Skylake one could say the industry is going that direction not Dell.
People were wondering about running a desktop GPU on a laptop and they made the AGA. Perhaps its not perfect but at one point it was the first of its kind. Years ago I have seen fans inquire about that.
Now do I know they directly created that because of customers requests? No. How do we know if they do or dont?

 

Indeed....just to re-emphasize what I said above,

"...Dell's warranty and service is pretty unmatched. On my first 17R3, I had called Tuesday, Return Box w/ Pre Paid Overnight Label arrived Wednesday, they receive it Thursday and I get the laptop back the next day. Just insanely quick. That holds a lot of value right there......."

The AGA was and still is a revolution for gaming laptops. I'm sure AW is well aware of the bottleneck and have plans to be proactive about that...perhaps utilizing the USB-C port...who knows...

I'm on 1.2.2 and the machine is solid as a rock. No complaints here...

Great point about bga not being an AW exclusive haha... one interesting point that I was thinking about is whether hard core gamers would prefer a BGA 970M SLI or a single socketed 980 desktop GPU in a laptop? I know I would take the 970M SLI (BGA) in a heart beat if I was a hard core gamer, but that's just me...

970M SLI (BGA) does exist in a laptop and correct me if I'm wrong, but two 970M SLI over clocked would eat a single 980 alive. Am I dreaming? LOL...

 

Yeah... BGA with 970M SLI exist. But as you said... Can this 970M SLI OC'd setup you talking about, beat or even EAT ALIVE my Firestrike 14474P score (single Gtx980 in my sig)? 3DM.com search have the answer for you I think!!
BTW I have never ever heard about laptops with whole two 970M SLI.

 

Finally got around to picking up GTAV and I have to say I'm quite impressed at how well it runs on my BGA turdbook, especially coupled with the fact it's not burning a hole in my lap. The ability to play on a reclining couch with a beer in hand makes up for not having all the settings maxed, IMHO.

 

Please show me proof of Clevo's released in the last 12 months that have bricked after BIOS update.

They released the 17R2 without the ability to even use raid 0... That is no enthusiast grade laptop! You know how many times I received a brand new machine from them with a dead pixel on the LCD? 3 times. You know how many times replacement LCD's came with yet another dead pixel and extremely terrible backlight bleed? 3 times. I cannot favour a company like that or take them seriously. I feel sorry for anyone who can... And what I just mentioned doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. If I have any issues at all with my 17R3, I'm selling everything Alienware and moving over to Clevo so fast--with a HUGE smile on my face.

 

If I had luck like yours I'd probably give up buying hardware and take up knitting or something.

 

Hm, well that's unfortunate. Hopefully it's fixed eventually.

Yeah I went into the Intel settings and the advanced tab says that my display doesn't have advanced settings, and the nvidia control panel doesn't have the menu setting where you can enter in custom resolutions. It has far less options than the desktop settings menu I'm used to seeing and maybe it has something to do with optimus or something like that.

Hopefully a solution presents itself.

 

I think you need to make the custom resolution in the Intel control panel, not the nvidia one

 

It's not possible because the "Advanced" settings area of the intel control panel (where I'm fairly certain the custom resolution options are) is not available to me.

I would make it a custom resolution if it were possible, but really it shouldn't need to be done anyway. 2560 x 1440 is a standard resolution.

 

Well I dont have that data. I will search.
But I will say that countless people have said that their stock BIOS(s) simply suck. That is why the Prema BIOS is a must. In order to get that you must buy the system from an overpriced (based on facts) Prema partner. Again I have had countless Alienwares. M17x R1 R2 R3 R4, M15x, Alienware 14, Alienware 15R1, Alienware 17R3. etc. Not one single time have I had a BIOS brick. Not a single one had dead pixels. Among those systems I also had countless exchanges when dealing with the M15x / AW15R1 throttling issue. None of them had dead pixels.
Light bleed is common among LCDs from any company, if one is very OCD you just have to warranty swap the LCDs to get one that has the least amount of bleed.
Im very sure that clevo has light bleed too. There are only so many panel makers out there. I have had a $3000 TV with light bleed.

Regarding the BIOS I have been on 1.2.12, I have been on 1.2.13. I'm not saying its not happening but it clearly is some circumstantial situation that no company is immune to. Stuff happens even Microsoft one of the biggest companies in the world often discovers their main bugs after a product is released. I'm not saying AW is this perfect company. The M15x and the AW15R1 / AW17R2 had a flawed by design power system clearly. Both times those systems were in production I spent plenty of time complaining to them and researching it with people on here. We were pissed.
The 15R1 / 17R2 has been resolved with the 15R2 and 17R3.

Again by all means get a Clevo. I like them. However right now with my needs I would rather the aesthetics of the AW systems. I don't like the keyboard, the LID, or the warranty of the Clevos. Since I have two pretty decent gaming desktops and an option for and AGA on the 17R3 I don't really care if I have the maxed out balls to the wall laptop on the occasion I go on a trip and want to do some night gaming. The power provided by the 17R3 is plenty for me.

Again I repeat the pros and cons of each company are based on the personal preference of the buyer. However neither system is with out cons. There are plenty of cons with both systems, and there are plenty of pros with both systems.

 

I cleaned up numerous posts. If yours was caught up in it, apologies, sometimes there's not a good way to edit a post and still keep its intent intact.

Charles

 

I was responding to the reports and see Charles beat me to the punch.

Guys, hating the lack of options and being for or against BGA is fine and perfectly normal. Hate on the technology all you want. Being rude, calling names and bickering is not acceptable. We must be civilized to one another. People that hate BGA hate the fact that some are OK with it and people that think it is OK are growing weary of the comments against it, but this is a forum where diverse opinions are tolerated. Act like men, not kids, and it will turn out fine. If @DeeX and I can exchange views without harboring resentment for one another there is no reason rest of us cannot do the same.

Former Alienware enthusiasts are disappointed with the lack of options, and the need to be heard and seen by Alienware is the only hope we have for a better tomorrow. Many of us have been part of the Alienware culture for years and this is a big deal to us. We are not here to troll... this forum has been part of our life for many years. What they have done to the brand is like watching a beloved member of the family slowly die from cancer or some other brutal disease. If Alienware want our business back they will have to accommodate us. Until then, we have resorted to Clevo as a brand replacement because they have much better options for us.

There is good and bad about every brand. Dell/Alienware still has a better warranty, although you might not recognize that by the posts from those who have been given the run-around. If you ever need to use your Clevo warranty, it will help put things in perspective.

So, let's get along and no more name-calling.

Thanks, Charles. Appreciate having you available to step in to fix the mess.

 

Thanks for coming through guys to bring some balance to this. Much appreciated, and my apologies for contributing/or rather responding to the name calling with name calling... Should have excluded that to get my points across but I'm glad it is fixed now.

 

The million dollar question for me is do I just keep the 17R3 with the BIOS it ships with when it arrives next week (already a week late) or do I make an attempt to flash it to the newest one at the risk of bricking a brand new machine?

Not very confidence inspiring seeing as a number of them have bricked already.

How I wish I had a Clevo right now. Live and learn.

 

I agree. We can all get along. Debating is fun when it is civil. I understand the perspective of both sides, because I sit on one side, while being open to have the other.

In order to grab the attention of Alienware, perhaps create a specific thread called, "Alienware You Better Read This If You Want Our Business!" ...then anyone can rant all they want without dogging on current bga owners; because either way you slice it, bashing bga in a lounge is just asking for a response.

Anyhow, happy computing...OC away and live in the edge.

Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

Just flash to 1.2.2, it's rock solid. Is there anything in 1.2.13 that you need?

Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

I don't plan to re-paste and OC too high (not past 4.3Ghz) until I purchase the Samsung SM961 to run RAID 0... Primarily planning to use it for school work due to portability, and some editing, VR gaming etc. What I really love about my current 17R2 and am going to miss is the touch screen, because I used it a lot in school; came in very handy.. Looking forward to the 4K screen, just can't handle anything else going wrong on an Alienware machine.. I think I have had everything that can go wrong previously, go wrong; which is why I am venting so much.

Info that will be very helpful:

-I will be upgrading the RAM on the 17R3 from 16GB to 32GB.. What RAM has been proven to be the best performing thus far?

-I've been reading that the color on the 4K screen out of factory is a little off.. What is the best way to properly calibrate the 4K screen? .. Found a profile that can be downloaded and used to 'fix' it but the source is not entirely trust worthy. Could really benefit from getting a perfect calibration for video & photo editing.

-I read somewhere that the 17R3 has less room for SSD's than the 17R2; what is the exact setup? 3 SSD's max??

 

I also do a lot of editing and have used the downloaded profile, which works like a charm.

The 32GB G.Skill sticks that I have work flawlessly. They are currently about $140 for 16GBx2.

Since the R3 only has one 2.5" bay, I put are 1TB Samsung 850 Pro in there. You're best bet is do a RAID 0 with two 1TB m.2's...that'd be monstrous.



Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

Thanks, I used 32GB Corsair Vengeance in my AW18, so if they make RAM for the 17R3 I'd prefer their stuff over G. Skill as at least at that time it was proven to be faster.. Not by much, very subtle difference, but if you're upgrading may as well go all out.

If you (or anyone else) could post links to the exact RAM for a 32GB upgrade, that would be useful as a lot of them are very similar, but not all work in this laptop.

Could you share the link for the 4K calibration please, not sure if we have the same source for that, but if you used it and it works-I'd prefer to use that one.

And yes definitely going to do 2 x 1TB SM961 Raid 0.. Need that as I know it will help immensely with 4K video editing on the go... Assuming the machine doesn't have any problems with it, otherwise Clevo has my name all over it because I don't have anymore "warranty patience" left in me.

 

Just stuck 2x16gb hyperx in mine today, replacing the 2x8gb hyperx I had in it which replaced the stock 2x4gb sticks. I have 2x 1tb m.2 sandisk x400 shipping now I'll have them Sunday. Not sure if I want to take out my 500gb 950 pro and run raid, I originally bought 2x so I could put 1x in my Alienware r3 and 1x in my precision 7710. But we'll see I guess.

Otherwise my 850 pro 2.5 1tb is still enough for gaming data storage, if 2tb weren't so expensive I'd have picked that up instead.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

For the RAM, click on / over the RAM part of my signature and it should link you to my thread. You should see a list of confirmed RAM sticks on the OP.

I'm on the road, but when I get back to the office I'll dig up the calibration.

I'm hoping the R4 refresh has a glass touch screen...so much better for editing....though the matte is pretty nice for what it is...no complaints.


Powered by: Quad Core Exynos + 6820HK

 

Given that no BIOS released so far has a 100% brick rate, I'd rather flash them all while my laptop is still under warranty so that I can find out if my laptop is too defective to run a particular BIOS version.

 

You could invest in a colourimeter, that's the only way to get a truly accurate colour calibration, because each individual panel (even of the same model number) will require different calibrations. Using a calibrated profile from another user is probably a step in the right direction though (of course if it's the same screen model), but not a perfect solution. I've not regretted buying my colourimeter, it made my crappy laptop screen bearable and I've calibrated screens for friends & family, even managed to calibrate my TV (now that's a bonus!). (I use a Spyder4Pro colourimeter, calibrating my TV was more complicated and involved using a free program called HCFR).

 

What means do you use for applying the calibration corrections?

 

Extremely slow write speeds? What's wrong with my SSD?
Not even 1mbps in 4k write benchmark, but I get over 150mbps while writing a file on the ssd. What's the problem?

 

Are you asking me? Colourimeters like the Spyder4Pro just attach to the screen and the calibration software that came with the device runs & then it calibrates your screen automatically, no user input required really. It then creates a modified icc profile that is loaded automatically - this profile contains the calibration corrections so that output to the screen is 'true' colours.

 

So I've used less precise software-based calibration to create ICC profiles in the past, and I found that a lot of games overwrite the GPU LUT in order to implement gamma sliders. Does the Spyder4Pro come with software that can counteract this?

There's a SourceForge project called colorclutch that acts as a Direct3D passthrough to block LUT write calls for a game, but it is a pain to use and isn't 100% reliable (and may not work on newer games, and doesn't support OpenGL). A few games also let you disable their gamma controls, but not enough of them.

I'm interested in possibly getting a colorimiter, but I don't want to have to fight games.

Also, have you noticed whether this increases the occurrence of banding artifacts due to the reduction in colorspace on the GPU?

Lastly, how do you apply the calibrations to a TV?

 

Spyder4Pro can implement the colour profile in some games, Titanfall is one game where it won't apply it. Some other games start up in the uncalibrated state, and then the software recognises this & switches it to calibrated, and some start up with calibrated profile straight away. It's a bit hit & miss for gaming, most are calibrated in my experience.

For the TV, read up on the HCFR site and other sites that describe how to use HCFR. It involved uninstalling my Spyder4Pro software, and then installing HCFR and also manually installing a specific driver 'from HCFR' for the Spyder4Pro. I then used Rec702 reference patterns to run on the TV from a USB stick while holding my colourimeter to the screen to get measurements for greyscale which HCFR creates a graph for. I then manually manipulated the RGB Gain & Bias values (in the TV menu) to bring the greyscale to very small delta values away from 'perfection'. I then calibrated it for colour saturation again using graphs created by HCFR after taking my measurements: and then I changed Hue & Colour setting variables in the TV, remeasured, changed again, remeasured, etc, etc. Similar type of processes for determining Contrast & Brightness settings. I had to learn a lot in order to develop the knowledge to do it (and I've forgotten some too), and I learnt most of it from a website I've forgotten the name of, but it described how to use HCFR effectively. (Actually I set Contrast & Brightness first, then greyscale, then colour).

 

Have you heard if the Spyder5Pro is any good? Looks like I can buy one new cheaper than the Spyer4Pro is going used.

Any issues with Windows 10 compatibility?

 

Don't know anything about the Spyder products beyond the Spyder4Pro, I can only assume it's as good or improved more. Spyder4Pro is compatible with Windows 10 using the same software & drivers that were developed for Windows 7, no changes required. I'd buy the latest version of whatever colourimeter is out there, do some research and see which one makes sense, pleased with mine though.

 

Just got my sandisk x400 m.2, anyone know the screw size and where to pick one up?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

It seems they pulled the 1.2.3 BIOS from their servers.
There is a theory that might be part of the problem.
Just to be safe if your system comes with 1.2.3. Flash down to 1.2.2 before flashing anything higher.
There have been tons of people that have flashed 1.2.12 and 1.2.13 without.
It reminds me of online reviews about a local business. Most of the time you will hear opinions when people have a problem.
Less often then not you dont here things when people are happy and dont have a problem. Its not like people make a thread titled. "Just flashed 1.2.13 and no problems"
They flash, it works, they carry on about their day.

Regarding wishing you had a Clevo; Why not cancel the order or simply return it?
Its not difficult to get a return done without paying a restocking fee.

 

I want to order the Spyder5Elite to calibrate the 17R3 and my AW18's but I have a couple of questions..

I imagine the Spyder5Elite works similarly to your Spyder4Pro..

After you apply your corrected calibration to your laptop, is that permanently saved and always uses the newly calibrated state after it is applied regardless of whether or not you keep the SpyderPro software installed?

Another question I have is depending on the games I play, sometimes I use my 3 external monitors for gaming which are connected to the AGA. How will the Spyder software know to calibrate my laptop and the external monitors properly and differentiate them, ie what settings to apply when I use either or? As in does the software write the changes directly to the monitors? How well does it work with multi-monitor setups?

 

The new 17R3 is a system exchange for my lemon the 17R2, so that's not an option.

 

Put my new Sandisk x400 1tb into the second M.2 slot, windows disk management to set it all up without an issue. Unlike my 950 pro, this one shows smart info in hwinfo. Transferred one of my main vm's over from my 850 to the x400, started off around 450mbsp, ended around 4-8mbps. Checking hwinfo, temps on the x400 were pretty consistant 76C, while the 850 sat around 35C. Like I said my 950 doesn't show smart info, so not sure what the M.2 normally run temp wise, I think I read they run warm, but is 76C ok for them? And 4-8 mbps is some horrible throttling. Going to do more testing, but any light into this by anyone?

 

Oh, trust me... they already know. That part was done a long time ago. Publicly and in private conversations with people in power. Now we are using bad publicity to turn up the heat. They had a chance to meet our expectations when we asked nicely and they chose not to. They read and responded to the posts at IdeaStorm and chose to take no action when things needed to be addressed. Frank made excuses at the AMA, and here we are today. Maybe eventually they'll get tired of having their brand name run into the ground by a group of vocal extreme performance enthusiasts that used to love the brand and get their act together again. But, it's actually the extreme performance enthusiasts that are not saying anything and quietly moving on they should be most concerned about. Those guys probably won't hang around long enough to see if things get straightened out.

I have dual Sandisk X400 512GB M.2 drives in RAID0 in both El Cazador and Alienkiller. I was happy enough with the first pair that I decided to buy a second pair. They are decent drives. I never cared for the Samsung NVMe drives that I had in the Sky X9E review unit...way too much hassle and the extra speed didn't really yield a discernible benefit for anything except SSD benchmarks. Not sure what is going on with that one. Do you have the Intel Link State Power Management garbage turned off?

 

IdeaStorm is a joke. There's as much spam as useful stuff there, and Dell has replied to only a single-digit percentage of ideas. At their current rate, it would take hundreds of years for Dell to work through a significant portion of the ideas posted there.

 

It used to be pretty good. Then Dell had a huge reduction in workforce and gave my buddy Cy Jervis the boot along with a larger group of talented folks... really a shame. Cy was a good guy, too. When they no longer had anyone to manage it correctly, things came unraveled quickly. I've never understood the flawed mentality of cutting loose your most talented people to save a few bucks. Better to cut loose an extra couple of losers and keep the good ones, but the practice of firing the best talent seems to be universal when bean counters are trying to keep shareholders happy. We should start a "mutual technology firm" (meaning owned by customers, like a mutual insurance company) and then we wouldn't have to give a hoot about shareholders. As long as a mutual company breaks even that's all that matters. There is no reason to make a profit because it gets returned to the customer/owner.

 

Some good questions, but unfortunately I don't know the answers to them, you're best off contacting the Spyder support. I think I can answer your first question though about uninstalling the Spyder software. When I uninstalled the Spyder software before calibrating my TV (needed to do so in order to install HCFR), my calibrated screen remained. With the Spyder4Pro version there's a little application called ProfileChooser that doesn't get uninstalled when you uninstall the software - it's literally a little applet that allows you to manually select different icc profiles that have been saved to your PC - you can use this to choose an existing calibrated profile. I can't be sure this is the same for the Spyder5 version though, works fine for Spyder4 though.

 

Mine has it and I have the 4k display. I had to make a custom res myself to enable 2560x1440 in some games I have.

 

Hello guys! I have recently developed a minor issue with my 17 r3. Each time I restart my machine the Bluetooth is disabled in the device manager and the Bluetooth icon is not present on my task bar. I have to go into device manager and enable manually each time. I do have the latest driver installed from the Dell site. It is the killer wireless 1535/Qualcom Atheros bluetooth 4.1. Anyone else has this problem? Any suggestions for a solution? Much appreciate any help with this issue.