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

That's terrible!
It's definitely cause for throttling... And possible fire hazard if it keeps up. I saw a thread before with someone having this issue but it seems rare, thankfully.
You probably need to check with Dell since it could be a serious motherboard issue (drawing too much current) and not only a bad cable.

 

Yeah mine was similar as shown in the previois attachment. E-mail alienware in the US to make a note of it and they might send you a new one. What bios are you on?

 

This is most likely a dangerous design flaw. And shall be replaced free of charge even if the warranty has expired long ago(replacement parts and the job). Everything else is not acceptable. In my country we have laws for this. What is your opinion on this?

 

When I emailed technical support I could get a cable fairly quickly luckily but I also still have 15 months of next business day support left. In a few months I will check the cable again if it is correct that it happened while using bios 1.2.2 for too long.

Anyway, for every other user out there. e-mail techsupport of Alienware directly. So they know what is up and can act accordingly.

 

btw i live in india, i have no hope, they said my system is out of warranty, and cant help, they are willing to provide me cable for around 120 dollars, or asked me to get premium warranty extension for 1 year for 299 dollars.. I saw on parts people US website selling it for 40dollars + 20 dollars shipping, still cheaper.. I was on Latest 1.3.16 latest BIOS.. can u help me out with mail stuffs, or just tag them here.. Ive disassembled my laptop, and its gonna stay like that until I get it fixed.. don't wanna risk my motherboard..

 

Make a case in every Aw forum and social media(Ask bro @Cass-Olé for help with this). Remember your AW machine have nearly started a fire home. This design flaw is dangerous and should be fixed free regardless of expired warranty or not!! It's DELL's damn duty to fix this!! If this has happened home here.... You had a big case and Dell would have came into Big problems if they denied to help you out with this.

 

I have pm-ed you details.

Also you can search the partnumber on taobao. Saw them there for around 10usd.

But this should be fixed. Hopefully it is just one off problems and not widespread.

 

Of course it should be fixed regardless of your warranty is expired or not. This is a ticking bomb!! Maybe @Alienware-L_Porras or @Alienware-K_Castro can chime in.

 

yeah if the cable alone caused the whole GPU mess, then ill get it from other website, I couldn't find anywhere else, just on parts-people website.. its rounding up near 60 usd.. I hope atleast my motherboard Is safe.. I just feel this is happening after some ****ty driver update.. could be ME firmware.. or may be BIOS conflict with windows power settings.. not so sure.

 

its not for everyone, its just me and few other users, but yeah for me its like nightmare, I keep finding one after another, like a beta tester.. they should give me new alienware to test lol. what else to say..

 

I am really not sure if it is software. I got the explanation that it was because of the bios that I used till end of august. The 1.2.2 bios with express charging disabled.

Anyway here is the cable. http://m.intl.taobao.com/detail/detail.html?spm=a1z5f.7632060.0.0&id=533273982481

 

Who knows how widespread this flaw is? And yeah, You have had bad luck with your Dell experience. 6 crippled motherboard and the newer AW models almost in flames.

 

I rather ship it from U.S lol, because here customs are pretty bad when it comes to handling Chinese imports.. Takes forver to clear... let me see.. thanks for the link.. my cable works though.. I can use for browsing.. anything related to cpu its fine, the moment GPU kicks in.. things go wild, but still its risky.. it might bring the board down. so yeah.. until I get new ones.. rest for my laptop..

 

Also buy a spare one if you intend to have your machine more than a half year This depends where and how much you will pay for the parts

 

@|VBoy: not sure what I an do to help, but we tweeted the General Manager, the Head Alien today about how they cheapskated non-K Skylake buyers their over-clocking heatsink:

• https://twitter.com/AzorFrank
• https://twitter.com/AzorFrank/status/784046330016571394
• go public man, so others are aware, & maybe he can take care of you

@Poppy ... Alien Porras & Castro have not been seen nor heard from in 6weeks, closer to 2months ... late August was last time Castro was here, Porras, way before that

_____________________
EDIT THE TWEET LINK INTO YOUR POST
so we can watch Frank give you the same run-around like he did up here in mine
​

 

well I did tweet @ frank.. no reply what so ever.. Dell india is saying I'm out of warranty, I have to either go for one time fix charge which is 150 USD, which will cover only that DC input jack Cable, or I can opt for 1year Premium Support which is 279$..

 

Mail the guy i send you the details off. Its a known issue i suspect.

 

already done that too, with cc to frank.. lets see if they reply..

 

I hope it. I sincerly hope this is not a widespread issue. How long where you on firmware 1.2.2 by the way?

 

I'm not on 1.2.2.. ive been using 1.3.6 for quite sometime.. not sure why this bios have this issue, may be someother thing.. ME firmewares etc

 

But 1.3.6 was out only sinceate august right?

I dont think software is the problem.

 

Hey thanks for the email address, I got reply from the ID you gave me, they said they will forward the case to indian department, and surely they will try to help me, and just now I got a call from regional team, saying after 3-4 days I have to bring my laptop to the service center, they will see if everything is working fine, also they agreed to replace the cable, phewwwww.. relieeeffff.. thanks bro..

 

Anytime! glad to hear it is working out. Cheers bro!

 

It only makes sense. Dangerous design flaws should be fixed even if the warranty has expired.

 

New Killer drivers (Version 1.1.64.1737, 28 September 2016) released for Win10 anniversary update compatibility: http://www.killernetworking.com/product-support/driver-downloads

There is also a driver-only release dated 23 September. I might switch to that because the wifi driver keeps dying while downloading Steam games on a 100mbit WAN connection / 300mbit wifi connection.

 

Let's hope you get it sorted. I had a similar issue a few months back. Here is my original post about it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/17r3-dc-in-cable-temperature.792607/

I also took a photo of my cable

 

How does your cable look now. Is it resolved?

 

Yeah, it was changed along with the mainboard and has been good ever since.

 

Good to hear. I only changed the dc in cable so i am curious how it will work out.

 

hey guys, is it ok to leave my CPU in Performance Mode Enabled in the BIOS full time?

 

Yes, it just unlocks the ability to overclock via BIOS and/or Intel XTU, but doesn't actually change the speeds by default. This is how I run mine.

 

Gotcha, very cool. I'll leave it running then. Thanks!

For benchmarks (Nothing crazy), which profile is recommended?

 

I don't set an OC profile myself. I think most people poo-poo the built-in OC presets.

 

My current laptop, a Gateway P7811fx is 8 years old now and I need an upgrade. I am looking at an AW 17 w/GeForce970 and the 4k UHD screen. I have a few questions that maybe you guys can help me with.

If I get the 8GB, that leaves two slots open for an additional 16GB. How easy is it to replace the 8GB in the first two slots if I decide to upgrade to 32GB in the future?

If I get the 128GB SSD, is the a SATA M.2 or PCie M.2 drive? Does it support 2 M.s PCIe drives or just 1? Can I install one PCIe SSD and one SATA M.2 drive?

Does AW do Black Friday deals? If so, what kind of deals did they have last year? Any way to know what they will do this year?

 

Never Aw laptops have only 2 ram slots.

 

You are correct... I got confused with one of the other models.
Can I install two M.2 drives and a 2.5" drive all at the same time?

 

Fill it up

 

You can. I did the same.

 

I'm actually considering buying the R3 17 lately. Don't really want the new 2016 models since I'm trying to stay under $1000 and I hate the look.

I see that I can get the standard specs (i7-6700hq, gtx 970m, 8 ram, 1080p screen) for around $900 used these days, seems like a good deal?

Also, does this thing have a msata slot?

 

2x M.2 and 1x 2.5". You can use mSATA SSD to 2.5-Inch SATA Adapter if you have an old mSATA SSD lying.

 

The GPU is probably the part that will age out first (even for my 980M 8GB), but it should do fine for a couple years and there's now the ability to use external GPUs (although that may not be a whole lot cheaper than a new laptop in the end). The system RAM may be a bit tight for some things, but it's one of the easiest things to upgrade in a laptop.

The CPU is probably fine. The HK doesn't really have meaningful headroom for overclocking (especially with the stock cooling), so that's arguably a gimmick (I'm sure I'll catch some flak for that).

 

yeah, honestly the only game I play is dota, which only gets minor graphical upgrades every 2+ years. as long as it runs that game well for the next 5+ years I'm content.

just wanted a new system so I could keep one at my workplace and not lug around my current 10lb notebook nearly every day.

was surprised to see last year's model under $1k, so I figured why not. i've considered other notebooks but christ, why do gaming notebooks have to be so hideous.

sort of glad this doesn't have an msata... didn't want to go through the hassle of installing those.

 

If you use the aga, there is quite a bit of headroom for overclocking. I run 4.1 ghz stable at max temp of low 70s under load

 

Can you kindly guide me how do you enable over provisioning and around what level?

 

I used Samsung Magician to set it up. It defaults to 10%. I think it just makes sure that there are no partitions at the end of the drive, but I'm not sure.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-for-1tb-samsung-850-evo.772091/#post-9941752

 

How did you figure out your gpu was defective? Was it cause of the constant blue screens? I am getting constant blue screens on both of my alienwares 15 r2. is it a driver specific issue or hardware issue? Any help is appreciated

 

Were you able to sort out this issue? I am getting constant Blue screens with different errors! I dont know if its a faulty hardware or drivers, or just windows 10 is just that bad.

 

guys i have constant Blue screens in my alienware.

Error code: DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL (iaStorA.sys) happened many a times when I am watching youtube video on chrome. Is it a igpu driver issue? or a plain faulty mobo?

 

iaStorA.sys sounds like a driver associated with Intel Rapid Storage Technology (an intel driver for your SSDs and HDDs), might be worth trying to reinstall the Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers to see if that fixes the issue.