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

Lucky for me, my son has lost interest in fuzzy donuts. Although when running the 3DMark benchmarks, I got a lot of, "What game is that?" and "Can I play?"

 

A very expensive game to play when the objective is only to get better scores.

 

Hahaha so true!

 

Hi guys,
i just bought a 17 r2 with the 4980hq and the 4gb gtx 980. I can see there is a 980 custom bios which i will install, but is there a custom bios for the system ? i use 2 own one of these and it ran quite hot. I will redo thermal paste and get some Fujipoly pads 2

 

do you have 980 4gb or 980 8gb?

I would also consider sending the laptop back as it's oudated by now and the haswell models have a defect of throttling 24/7 @DeeX

 

Hi mate- i got it second hand, very well priced so couldn't resist.

Just upgraded the thermal compound on both the cpu/ gpu - the gpu is the 4GB version.

I intend on having the 180watt replaced for the 240watt by Dell. In the meantime i am using the M18X R2 330watt supply to juice her up.

Was there any custom bios for these with regards to revised fan tables?

 

Forgot to ask - reference the throttling etc, is this fixed when using the higher power adapter ?

 

some users have throttling, not all. But use bios a06. There are some issues with older ones. Disable express charging as well.

 

perfect thanks mate appreciate the tip.

 

Hi all

Been years since I posted here ;-). Anyway....almost 18 months now with my R2 and no issues to report (970GTX). I just bought the 28" Samsung 4k monitor ($270 instore at Costco) and hooked it up via HDMI.

Laptop had no issues recognizing the external monitor at 4k resolution and no mouse lag, etc.

However when I fired up COD-Blops 3 from Steam. the whole game runs in slow-mo!!! The res is only set to 1080p and even at that, everything is extremely laggy (like you drag the house to one corner and it takes almost 5 secs before the menu will select). I tried other games and same deal. When I disconnect the monitor (back on laptop screen), everything runs great.

Is it cos of hdmi output from the laptop? The Samsung does have Display port but it didn't come with the cable. Will the display port cable resolve this (mini displayport to display port cable).

And boy oh boy...4k sure is eye candy !! Everything looks crisp and clear like looking out the window! Just would like to make sure the display port cable will resolve this issue before I order it. Surprisingly, none of my local stores carry this cable (most carry the standard display port cable but not mini-display).

Thanks in advance!

 

OK, well. Does it get boggy after launching "only" when your plugged into 4k monitor. Does it launch fine on laptop screen only?

I have 970m, and I have 4k screen option on my laptop. I also have to run. But the new COD is 1080p, but advanced graphical setting are a lot of medium with some at high.

Also make sure windows has drivers for your monitor. It probably came with a disk. This will let it know the specs like resolution refresh rate and the like. Also make sure nvidia drivers are up to date

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

check in nvcp where that 4k monitor is getting signal


hdmi is connected to dgpu I think, not sure about the mdp

 

Shouldn't be an issue. I game a lot with it connected via hdmi to my 4k tv, never had any issues. Nvidia control panel determines which gpu gets used for which program.

What your talking about is just pushing/running the display. Which would be the case if he is also having issues while not gaming, but mentions that everything else is good.

Good idea though, not trying to disrespect.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

 

I had the same problem running an external monitor on dual display. I couldn't for the life of me figure it out, so I ended up reinstalling windows and everything. Come to find out it was a nvidia driver issue causing conflict in extended display. Try to ddu the nvidia driver and give 375.63 driver a shot. It worked for me

 

any 17r3 owners monitor the PCH temperature?

Mine runs upto 85C under gaming load and I think it is the cause of the weird CPU throttling I face even though the core temperatures are fine (~70C).

 

Hi all

Update to my 4k monitor./gaming issue. So it turned out to be the HDMI cable. Not really sure but it seems something to do with refresh rate using hdmi on the alienware (30hz max?) etc. I got the display port cable from Newegg today and using the display port cable, ZERO issues.

Surprisingly, the 970GTX can run games (at least Blops3) at full 4k at low settings just fine. I played some multiplayer maps and really couldn't tell that the game was running at 4k res (VS 1080p) in terms of performance. Visually, 4k does look sharper. I scaled the game back to 1080p and the scaling (on a 4k monitor) is very good.

Still got stock 8GB RAM on my R2 to this day so gonna order Crucial 16GB ram sticks today and then move my setup to a computer desk and use the 4k monitor full time.

PS: Almost 18 months now and zero issues on the laptop. Rock solid from day one and still running the Win10 upgrade OS without ever reinstalling anything...hoping to get couple of more years out of this puppy (knocks on wood!).

 

nice to know, glad you fixed your problem

 

To those experiencing excessive throttling. In addition to undervolting, and locking the fans on high with hwinfo, you may want to try a fresh windows 10 install and DO NOT install the dell thermal framework drivers.

 

How do you find out if the dell thermal drivers are installed? I have the R2 and as of last night, getting heavy throttling while gaming (frame rate drops and fans go in overdrive). I suspect it might be heat related.

Planned to remove the back cover to get to the GPU and to my horror, the R2 is unlike the older Alienware laptops. To get to the GPU/CPU, it requires a full open heart surgery (bloody Dell!!) . IS there any easier way to reapply thermal paste to the CPU without opening the entire bloody thing!?

Thanks.

 

To see what kind of throttling you are having download intel XTU and get it to graph out your cpu max speed while you play.

You should see alot of benefit from getting hwinfo64 and clicking the fan button on the sensor page and setting you fans to the highest setting.

Also I would get throttlestop because it will let you set your voltage lower and thus lower your heat. You can do this with intel XTU but I would use throttle stop because intel XTU can apply its voltage changes shortly after turning the computer on which is not good. In throttlestop click the FIVR button and for cpu core voltage click unlock adjustable voltage. Make sure its on adaptive and then you can change your Offset Voltage. Change it to -50mv and apply and play your games or whatever for a while. If your cpu can handle it everything will be normal. If its too low then your computer will crash. Restart and change it if you need to. Eventually you will find a lower setting where your computer doesn't ever crash and produces less heat. You can do the same thing with your cache voltage for even less heat.

In XTU if a game is still throttling a little bit and you want it more stable over time you can set your clockspeeds lower with the core multipliers. Overwatch does this for me. With my old motherboad I used to have to put it on 26 to stop throttling. My new one can handle 29. Most games will be able to handle the full normal multiplier setting tho. Unfortunately after my first motherboard everything throttled down to 800mhz which was way to low to play. The only thing that fixed this was reinstalling windows.

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The dell thermal drivers will be installed by default. If you download a windows install from microsoft and do a fresh install it wont have those unless you make it update with the device manager or by downloading them from dell. They may not say they are from dell, but you will see the intel thermal framework in your programs list where you can uninstall programs. Uninstalling it will not help you will have to do a fresh install I think or find a way to wipe them off which I do not know how to do.

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There are some additional things im doing with throttlestop and intel XTU so if you reinstall and still have bad throttling let me know i will tell everything I'm doing.

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Yes to get the heatsink off you will have to take the top, the bottom, the hard drive, the screen assembly, and the motherboad completely out first. Have some good screwdrivers to chose from. Get the service manual for the 17 r2 as a reference and follow it slowly and carefully. I felt like i was going to break the harddrive cable by taking it off the motherboad so i unscrewed the metal frame around the harddrive and disconnected the cable at that end. The manual says that you have to take out the wireless card but you only need to unscrew the metal thing covering its power wire and unplug the power wire. Be careful with the 4 ribbon cable connectors that you have to disconnect on the bottom. All you need to do to get the ribbon cables off is gently lift up on the sides of the plastic things untill they move up a millimeter or two and then the cables should be lose enough to lift out. The plastic things will stay connected to the motherboard. And be careful if you are wiping the old crappy paste off around the cpu and gpu which I recommend doing. Be very gentile and use a light amount of rubbing alcohol to soften it up. There are a number of capacitors sticking up around the cpu and gpu that you will not be able to see through the paste and if you wipe with even moderate force you could disconnect one of them. You only need to wipe off enough to allow for your excess paste to have somewhere to go. Idk if you need this much info but I'm happy to provide it and more if you want.

The whole thing will take at least 2 hours if its your first time and you are going carefully and slowly.

 

saving this for later.
good info.

 

Hello Brothers in laptops haha,

In the past few weeks I'm having some strange problems with my R3 model (6820hk, 980m). I use my laptop mainly to two things, play and create games. However, since december I can't do neither.

1. The problem while playing (super hardware demanding game called CS:GO) is throttle, I think. In the beggining of the game everything is ok: 100-200 fps using +-80% of GPU temperatures around 80°C. Then, suddenly fps go below 50, gpu use falls down to 20-30% and temperatures of the CPU go around 95°C. Until the end of the match the laptop swaps between those two stages. I've ran some benchs/tests to unterstand better the problem

Through heaven's bench I get these results:

• FPS: 45.7
• Score: 1151
• Min FPS: 8.1
• Max FPS: 96.0

While running heaven I've kept HWMonitor running to see if CPU and it show 100°C as max temp.

2. The second ~anomally~ I've notice while trying to create a trailer to my small local multiplayer game. I simply can't run the tools for editing video anymore. I use Davinci Resolve, back in the little alien good days I could run the program with no problems and edit my small videos. Now I can't even play the playback sequence.​

Ok ... For the first problem I think I have to try to clean and repaste it, right? What about the second problem? Does anyone know what could be happening? Is temp problems messing the video processing power?

Thanks in Advance.

PS: Are those numbers of heaven ok for this config? (Test specs: extreme quality 1080p)

EDIT1: Screenshot from XTU through a match of cs go, clearly temp throttle, right?

 

Your Aw machine have shared heatsink/pipes. This will effect the temperature on both... graphics and processor. You need a re-paste before you kill your hardware. Don't use it anymore with high load before you're finished re-paste with proper thermal paste.

 

the computer will kill him in a spontaneous explosion before it dies

so no worry, a dead user has no concern for an overheating laptop

 

How hard it is to repaste it myself? I know the basics ... But Im not very used to laptops :B

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ven-core-temps-due-to-uneven-heatsink.797477/

 

Not hard, just time consuming and very exhausting process.

 

Dell just sent me a budget to the ~repair~, approximately 230 dollars, hahahaha I will start reading the guide.

 

ok....got the 16gb Crucial RAM from Amazon and bad news....system is giving 4 beeps (no ram detected). I tried to boot it up with one stick (8gb) at a time and no go.

Put the original 8GB sticks back and laptop boots just fine....the crucial came in brand new unopened package and looks undamaged. Does this mean this RAM is not compatiable with the R2?

Here's the link from amazon:..I ordered this cos I read someone else on another forum used the same RAM without any issues.

Also running BIOS A06 dated July 2015.

Wondering if I should get a exchange OR do full RMA and live with 8gb on my R2 :-(.
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0076W9Q5A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

ask for a rma on the ram from amazon, seems like a faulty set of ram if your old set works just fine

 

Guys i have the 4k monitor. The problem that i am facing is that in many games like battlefield 1, initially the game runs fine but next time i see that it automatically sets compatibility mode to disable display scaling. Now what this does is that it hangs the game on the initial screen. So i don't want it on, but i have to manually turn it off before launching everytime as it automatically enables itself! Please help guys.

 

Very good afternoon friends I have overheating problem of internal power supply cable in my alienware r3 17 so I would like to know a solution to avoid or correct this problem thank you very much and apologize for the inconvenience

 

A known problem http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ead-mobo-losing-my-mind.797979/#post-10383009
@rinneh Have the solution for you.
BTW. Welcome to the forum

 

Hey,

Some batches of cables had a problem in combination with the bios.

I recommend you to go to the latest 1.3.10 bios asap. Then go into the bios and disable rapid charging.

Contact Alienware support and show them this photo. They will probably send you a new cable. I exchanged mine past summer. No more problems ever since.

 

[Quote = "rinneh, de la publicación: 10429583, miembro de: 508872"] Hey,

Algunos lotes de cables tenían un problema en combinación con la BIOS.

Yo recomiendo ir a las últimas 1.3.10 bios lo antes posible. A continuación, entrar en la BIOS y desactivar la carga rápida.

Póngase en contacto con asistencia técnica de Alienware y mostrarles esta foto. Es posible que le envíe un nuevo cable. Intercambié mina verano pasado. No más problemas desde entonces. [/ Quote]

Very good afternoon friend thank you very much for your help I would like if it is not annoying to request an email to know more of this problem and as you replaced

 

Sorry I am unable to read Spanish. I ready your message as well. If you never disassembled laptops I do not recommend that you do it yourself. To replace the cable you have to fully disassemble the laptop. I recommend that you contact Alienware support. It is a known issue for them. Just update the bios for now and make sure express charging is disabled in bios.

 

Alienware 17 R3(2015) reaching crazy high temperatures with Prime95 after dust removal and repasting by Dell


I expected temperatures to drop after dust removal and repasting. What in the universe is happening here? There is also thermal throttling of nearly 0.5Ghz(3.1Ghz to 2.6Ghz for four core Boost). Is there something I can do about this?

Thanks

 

What is this, image for ants?

 

Let's face it. Bad image by flick. My bad, didn't check it. Anyway, here they are:


I feel the temperatures are dangerously high. I've manually throttled CPU to 75% max in Power settings so that my laptop isn't destroyed by the intense temperature. Any help would be appreciated

Thank you

 

Yes your temperature is high.

You need to repaste or have the alienware serviced by dell.

 

Like I said, I got the thermal re-pasting done by Dell. It's not helping.

 

You might need to show them the bad temps again, and have them do it again, or you can paste it yourself.

 

UPDATE on my memory issue.....I ordered another set from Amazon but in the 1.35V version. System worked perfectly and system recognized 16gb.

Appears the R17 requires the low voltage memory 1.35V (the prev set was 1.5V rated).

Might be helpful to others doing the RAM upgrade!!

 

I think it says on the chassis/ motherboard as well that ddr4l is requires?

 

I don't think there's DDR4L, on my 17 Skylake/1080 model it says "DDR4 ONLY"

 

Hmm I might be confused with the old AW15R1 then which had DDR3L

 

Hotwell is DDR3L Skylake can have both if the OEM want it https://ark.intel.com/products/88967/Intel-Core-i7-6700HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz

 

Hey does anyone have a 17 R3 with a audio pop at bootup and shutdown as we got 2 here and both do it and found this http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3517/t/19679614

Should I be worried.

 

But the connector slot on the mb is different for DDR3L and DDR4

Also I think it would be better to use DDR3L on the Skylake/Kabylake systems. DDR4 Sodimm with good timing is hard to find.

 

Hence I said... *if the OEM want it* (they can use the memory socket that suits them). If I bought a new machine now or a little later... I'd go for DDR4. It will come better and faster memory chips. Depends if you want to upgrade to faster memory later or you want have the machine a good while(longer time). I buy normally not full memory package in new machines(minimum size). Cheaper and I can determine more what I want self later.