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

New bios released to day. Earlier than expected. Will flash and see if I notice anything different.

 

The flash is completed... Everything went as expected and was a bit faster than previous versions it seems.
The IME is updated, see comparing to 1.6.1 down bellow:
1.6.1


1.7.0


HWiNFO

 

Hi all, I am planning to purchase an external gpu for my Alienware 17 r3. 6700hq 970m.
What is the best card I can purchase, beyond which I cannot notice difference with my laptop? (aka bottleneck?)
Willing to spend $$ only until it makes difference in performance. Hope I am clear.

 

New Intel Graphic driver. Just installed it and all seems good.

 

That driver is fairly newest one.

 

Yes, to my surprise dell have released a relatively new version of the Intel graphics driver.

 

Hello there,

I had a 6700HQ with a 980M and I previously used an AGA with a 1080 but the CPU really bottlenecked it (3DMark CPU scores a lot lower than GPU scores).

Based on my own experimentation, a 6700HQ is perfect support for ultra settings 1080p gaming at 60fps paired with a 1060 6GB or at the very outside a 1070 8GB via an AGA.

Even with a 1060 6GB you will get very solid 1080p/60 performance at Ultra settings when paired with a 6700HQ.

Good luck!!!

 

New nVIDIA driver:

 

Is it true that nvidia driver has some security issues fixed? I never really updated drivers though!

 

Looks like it. Updated the driver and all seems good.
Only thing I have experienced the last week is that the animations in windows start menu seems a bit choppy at 4k and 250% scaling. If I turn off transparency effects it is silky smooth. This is due to intel 530 uses high resources with the effects enabled. Likely a bug in W1903....

 

Optimus is buggy on v1903 but on v1809 it works.

 

i have no issues on 1903, i even tried the generic drivers from both nvidia and intel, no issues so far, even generic ones contain all those SVE fixes and other bug fixes.. but good to hear ur testing dell drivers, i test dell drivers once in every 3months.. otherwise its all intel / nvidia or station drivers..

 

Its barely noticeable, only when you click om the start menu and the text in the boxes "jumps" in a way. Its not a issue so to say, but it is a bit irritating. How much resources do your intel card use if you have the task manager open with the intel gpu chosen and at the same time click on the start menu with the transparency effect enabled? And do you have the 4k panel and with 225 scaling?

As this just only affects the animations in the start menu and not programs etc that is using the intel 530 card, its most likely not a driver/hardware issue.
This issue goes back in earlier builds also with 4k displays: https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/Inspiron-7559-4K-Display-lag/td-p/5139066

 

i usually dont use scaling on i literally hate the scaling on windows, but 4K on a 15inch hmmmm.. FYI i just checked on 2 different set of drivers with 1080p 120hz panel with 175%Scaling, GPU goes till 40percent for a second when i press start and goes back to 0, when i scroll again it goes to 40, this is on Older 1903 with intel driver 4973 which comes with windows update, the second test with 1903 with Intel DCH driver 26.20 WDDM 2.6 it goes around 25 percent when is open start menu, you have to reduce the scaling or atleast turn off the transparency, until MS decides to implement something better..

 

Thanks for testing this for me. With the transparency effect turned off everything is silky smooth and the intel gpu uses only 25-40% resources. With it enabled back up to 80-100%. Both options done with integrated 17inch UHD 4k, 60hz panel with 250% scaling in Windows. So my conclusion is similar to yours, wait for MS to fix this issue/bug in v1903 as they have done on earlier builds (dont recall this in 1809).
And yeah, 4k on 15inch is a "bit" overkill. But that said, that is more and more common on high spec builds. Witch again is more demanding and can have a negative effect on a smooth windows 10 user experience...

 

That's the bug I encountered many times and scaling is worse on FHD panel with 1903. So, I went back to v1809. hey, judal57 just got 12 core Ryzen highly binned chip @4.3GHz using 1.25V.

 

Hi,
I have just noticed a problem with one of my USB Port. The USB Port on the leftside of the laptop that is farthest away from the power connector of the PSU has a weird issue. If I plug in my HyperX Cloud Flight USB Dongle there the left earplug/left headset volume is very low. I tested the port with my mouse and external hard drive and everything works. I have tried the other USB Ports for the HyperX Cloud Flight USB Dongle and has no issues and the Volume are correct. Has anyone encountered this problem? Also what is the specific name of the USB driver in the dell download page so I can try reinstalling the driver.
@Papusan @VICKYGAMEBOY @Vasudev @rinneh Can you chime in please. ^_^

 

I just used the standard windows drivers. and one of those ports has lower power and one of them has powershare and more power than the official standards. The only solution is to swap ports of connected hardware.

 

Disassemble everything including daughter board (except TB3). I had constant disconnection issues with Right side USB and powershare USB ports and after disassembly it is alright.

 

Thanks for that info. Will give it a shot later to reinstall usb drivers. I was assuming lack of power as well if it is could be a hardware problem and not software.

really unusual though that my mouse and external hard drive works. Will try doing it when I would need to repaste.Thanks.

 

Even I felt it was PITA. Even I disassembled during spring cleaning day where I disassemble all my laptop and make it look like new.

 

On 1903 lates build I have noticed that windows gets unresponsive (can move mouse but nothing happens) when AlienFX lighting is starting (set to delayed autostart with windows). Its not a freezing issue. As soon as the lights turns off and on (the AlienFX lighting start process) all is back to normal. Anyone else who noticed this on W1903?

I do recall a similar issue on build 1511. The dell vault data collector made the fans spin on full throttle and the desktop freezes for a second. Disable the data vault processes solved the problem back then.

 

That issue was present in Insider release 18262.xx and upwards. I downgraded to v1809 because of that. Its an issue with optimus garbage. I'm seeing the similar issue on v1809 after exiting a game on build 678 and newer 720.
I forgot to post, I got new BIOS installed with newest/latest Intel uCode made by Daz.

 

New nVidia geforce driver:

 

Hello, I have a 980m 17 r3 with a 240w "flextronics" power supply that it came with. I'm currently running prema vbios and lightly overclocking. My issue is that whenever I use the graphics card at all, the card throttles and it falls on its face. If the battery is at 100% I've noticed it begins dropping percentage while gaming. Will buying a 330w dell power supply fix this or do you guys think my settings are messed up somehow?

 

240W is sufficient enough for 980m and any other HK cpus, maxing out around 150-185w depending on cpu... and another 30w for charging at same time.. check dc cable, try running throttlestop and gpuz for limit reasons..

 

Says power limit. When I try upping the voltage it becomes much worse thats why I'm considering the 330w

 

240W is barely enough for 980M. With Prema vBIOS mine gets pushed to 140W on GPU w/o VSYNC and starts draining battery and now I switched to VSYNC and now OC'ing doesn't drain battery.

You can try it and if the issue still occurs it might be a firmware throttling. 330W should be optimal in your case.

 

he can try for the powerlimit thing with 330w, but im afraid the dc cable would suffer due to the load and few other components, which is not meant for such loads.. but yeah unless he tries no one knows, i never used a 330w before, i got a third new battery, seems it just shows 88whr no matter what 0% wear level..

 

The DC cable might suffer at 280W+ and even my first battery failed at 88Wh with 12% wear level. On new battery the wear level was 6% and after battery calibration it went down to 2%.

 

i dont know man, it just seems i cannot load any games while on battery, the moment my nvidia gpu kicks in, my whole system shutsdown, i coudnt fix it, this is the third new battery im recieving from the company end, i tried going back to the oldest 1609 builds and tried uninstalling the battery driver, nothing works, im out of ideas now, tried power draining as well, it instantly turns off when there is a load on nvidia gpu, after that i have to reconect my charger to boot the system.. any suggestions ??

 

That is signs of failing battery or bad battery cells which Dell didn't even care or gave a care when I complained to them that battery was swollen causing the palm rest assembly to come off.
Maybe they updated the battery firmware to specific wattage until it turns off. I'd personally go for a 3rd party battery vendor other than Dell say laptopbatteryexpress.com or any OEM that has better warranty and use better battery cells from LG/Sanyo/Samsung.

 

the thing is i bought from a third party online store only, lapgadgets.in, they were kind enough to give me three new battery, i tested all of them, but in the end its the same, normally it runs fine, only when the nvidia gpu kicks in, whole systems turns off with a second, i have a panasonic a.k.a sanyo batteries inside.. its a new battery, with 0% wear level, watching movies, browsing on 100% brightness no issues, it lasts for 4-5hours.. firmware thing i havnt checked, they told me it could be my motherboard issue..

 

Don't use Generic Nvidia drivers instead use Dell ones. As for Intel GPU, use latest DCH drivers.
I can play GTA 5 or any game at 60 fps on battery but it heats up pretty quickly whereas my old battery dimmed my screen to 0% and shut off instantly!

 

Dang! The record holder of MB swap needs a new MB. The 19th?

 

Its 21 now.

 

I bought the 330w, everything seems to be much better but I can't finish a 3dmark11 test now without it failing. gaming is much better

 

i dont think im eligible for warranty extension for any of my alienware lol.. so yeah just being the GP here for the rest of users.. i already have a Asus ROG one got it free from a friend of mine who moved to MBP

 

For anyone interested in my issue it was resolved by getting a 330w adapter, repasting and disabling an nvidia setting in geforce experience that limited the card to 30fps on battery.

 

Thanks for GP testing. I dunno why Dell sells small wattage adapters to Alienware users and deny it won't work.
If 17r3 needs 330W for optimal performance no wonder new models need 600W+ PSU.

 

The long awaited 1.8.0 BIOS is now released. Will flash it and give an update afterwards....

 

Did the flash and it went good. I got the message to run the bios file again after reboot just to confirm the BIOS version, but I did not want to take that risk and just checked with HWiNFO...

Here are some additional info with the new BIOS;

 

im testing it now.. but pretty disappointed with the update, no RST ROM, VBIOS or GOP update.. or any other fixes. hmmm

 

I saw that also. But the systems seems stabile. No error or problems to report after 4 hours...

 

Already had latest MEI and CC uCode for few months and only issue is, on CPU heavy benchmarks, CC ucode has considerable performance hit.

 

Any thoughts/knowledge on whether I should update to BIOS 1.8.0 on my 17R3? I am still on v1.4.4 with the issue where the laptop won't shutdown completely and I have to press the power button to finish the process.

I have already discovered I need to do a DOS based BIOS flash, having run the .exe twice and I'm still on 1.4.4, presumably because DELL forked up the reboot process with the previous BIOS.

There's no way I am going to be taking the laptop apart to do a manual BIOS flash (with a clip-on flash tool) to fix the shutdown issue, which I have read all about and don't see the point of risking damage when a simple press of the power button works fine.

So the question is, will doing a DOS flash of 1.8.0 brick my laptop? Will it fix the reboot issue?

Thanks in advance

 

Have you tried Dell recovery USB trick yet? Use 1.3.12 BIOS file and revert back.

 

Anyone other Alienware 17 R3 having an issue with Windows 10 build 1903 where your laptop's screen turns black after a few minutes of inactivity but does not power off and won't come back on without a forced power-cycle?

I've tried a bunch of stuff to resolve this, but nothing works. Examples:

• Ensured drivers are up to date
  
• DISM & SFC Windows fixes
• Power profile reset
• Disable/enable hibernation support
  
• Disable/enable fast start
• Disable/enable PCIe link state management
• Disable/enable USB selective suspend
  
• Latest GPU & Intel drivers, and also Dell-provided GPU & Intel driver versions
• Display Driver Uninstaller removal of Intel & Nvidia drivers in safe mode prior to reinstall
  
• Various screensavers and screensaver timeouts
• Configure for sleep when idle instead of just turning display off, and also vice versa
• Cleaning disk and registry with CCleaner and Windows disk cleanup utility

If it matters, I'm running the latest 1.8.0 BIOS, which I flashed twice as instructed.

 

My suspicion is that the double-flash is requested in case the Intel ME part was locked the first time around.

 

i do have that problem, on both 1809 and 1903 with 15R2 on latest BIOS.. it doesnt sleep, but after some inactivity system is bricked, i had to force shutdown and restart again, im still testing random drivers and different bios, will update you if i get any work arounds, will install clean iso of 1909 and see if this thing persists..