*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Must say it is really a shame that Dell once again seem to have managed to drop the ball as so much is great about the new AlienWares, like overall build quality, design, keyboard, touchpad etc. If only they hadn't screwed up the production quality over and over. Just look at the XPS line, really great...if you ever manage to get one with good build quality / QC.

 

Haha yeah I likened it to a 12 year old boys doodle in a maths lesson.

Fyi I have a 17 R4 and its feking amazing! Yes I had to do some work but so happy with it now. Build quality is 2nd to none, it really is brilliant and that good, just such a shame the sh1t paste hold it back a little. However it must be said that mine was part of the new batch post Xmas 2016 and temps were actually good for stock compared to others but I wanted to make the most of the processor and OC to over 4GHz so I repasted with Liquid Metal as per iunlocks guide. If you wanna do the same, be prepared to do some work under the hood (i had to strip it down 3 times to get it right),but it's soooo worth it. Even got a custom name plate on it now thanks to @Rairch



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I guess it really comes down to, what is bonus and what is "what Dell promised". Perhaps we should be should be satisfied with the CPU not throttling at stock speed and see any possible OC as a bonus? The only real alternative I consider is the Aorus X7 DT V6 which seem to offer really impressive performance, especially when taking into account the slim chassis. Then I would think it was more ok if OCing didn't work and caused throttling.

From NotebookChecks review of the Aorus X7 DT V6

Stress Test
We use Prime95 and FurMark for CPU and GPU stress testing, respectively. It will be very interesting to see how the AORUS performs here given its slim form factor.


While overclocked to 4.0 GHz (the maximum available within the Command & Control software), the AORUS first pushes clock rates of 3.8 GHz across all four cores nearly consistently, with only occasional dips to 3.4 and 3.6 GHz on an individual core at a time. After around 45 seconds, the CPU temperatures (as measured by HWiNFO) stretch above 80 °C and the clock rates recede to a more reasonable (though still above the stock maximum Turbo rate) of 3.3-3.4 GHz across all four cores. The fans never reach their highest speeds for more than a few seconds.


When overclocked to Level 2 in the Command & Control software, GPU stress begins with clock rates near the Boost maximum of 1733 MHz before quickly dipping into the ~1550 MHz range. Temperatures, meanwhile, climb precipitously to a measured maximum of 77 °C, where they remain. If overclocking is maxed out at Level 4, another 100 MHz or so of power can be squeezed out of the GPU consistently, with frequencies hovering within the 1620 – 1650 MHz range with occasional spikes above 1800 MHz. Temperatures still never exceed 79 °C, which is both impressive and reassuring.


Finally, stressing both CPU and GPU simultaneously while both fully overclocked to the maximum level leaves us with sustainable GPU temperatures of 78 °C—and stable clock rates with them—but blistering CPU heat climbing swiftly into the 99 °C range, prompting near-immediate throttling to 2.6 GHz across all four cores. Spikes to ~3.6 GHz are still present on occasion, but 2.6 GHz is the norm. This is hardly surprising, but it is the point at which the AORUS X7 DT v6 finally reaches its limit.

 

Update on the throttling events. Happened today while playing overwatch in between matches. Saw speed drop to 2.5ghz and then come back up. No indicators triggered for thermal, power, or current limit.

 

I noticed my AW17 replacement machine had a "lower" service tag than the AW17 it replaced (starting with a 3 instead of a 4), is this a bit strange and and indication they might infact have sent me a refurbished machine instead? It also has the thermal problems that were supposed to have been fixed by now...

 

The msi screen suffers from colour banding, it's a 6 bit auo 75hrtz screen.

The answer to your question is dependant on what screen your Alienware comes with. I just returned a kaby lake Alienware 17, it came with auo 1080p screen which suffered from light bleed and was only 6 bit colour output, it's also a poor ips panel. Now, if you get the 1080p with lg Philips or chi me panel that's a different story and worth keeping and beats the msi 1080p panel.

 

The issue is at the assembly line. Whether that be overseas and/or here where they assemble systems together, whoever is in charge of this area needs to be replaced.

Obviously, whoever it is doesn't give a rats as we're continuing to see this issue. However, some of the newer units I've seen run pretty kinda sorta okay. Of course when you unlock it though...temps sore, but not as bad as before.

 

Can you pls. post a link or give a source for the msi gs73vr with
6bit auo 75hz panel! All the reviews I've found stated that: msi gs73vr and gt73vr are equipped with 120hz chi mei panels that seem better than 17r4's fhd and 3k screens in almost every aspect except viewing angles!

 

My 73vr came with 120hz screen


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Can anyone send me that statement where Dell confirmed that merely opening the laptop does not void the warranty? The customer service rep is absolutely clueless and denying even things confirmed by Frank Azor. Plastic was left inside (thermal pads), a cable of the fans loose (solder) and all he says is opening voids the warranty.... HELP

 

I believe that it is important to ask Dell in the right region of the world, as it could vary between different markets. Just opening it up is probably no problem, but repasting etc could be if outside of the US.

 

Just noticed something interesting that might have been discussed before. When running Prime95, i can see that the CPU load is at 100% and HWInfo tells me there is serious throttling going on and temps above 90 degrees. However, when running CPU stresstest in AID64, the CPU is also at 100% load but there is no throttling to be seen whats so ever according to HWInfo and degrees are WAY LOWER than with Prime95 (like 20-30 degrees lower).

Am I missing something here, shouldn't the behavior be similar as the CPU seem to be working at full capacity? If not, is Prime95 or AIDA64 benchmarks more relevant?

Edit:

Aaaaa, seems like in AIDA64 you need to check FPU testing specifically, doing that gives same results as Prime95...

 

So which bios are we supposed to be using now? I upgraded to 1.09 and i swear my laptop is running worse then 1.08.

 

My mistake I was referring to MSI GT72VR 6RE.
Mind you pretty much anything beats the Alienware 3k made by auo !

 

I need everyones opinion on my temps on my best buy 17r4 6700hq 1070 with qhd. It was built around end of november and shiped to best buy dec. 1st. Core 0 and 2 top out at 80°c while 1 and 3 are much cooler and never go over 70°c. Core 3 is the coolest of them all and has a 13° variance compared to core 2 under full load. Now when I undervolt to a stable -0.150 it drops core 0 and 2 by 9-10° c while core 1 and 3 has dropped about 6-8° c but im still getting a 10° core difference. With these new undervolt temps should i just leave it as is, exchange for newer build, or repaste which i dont feel comfortable doing in my own. Please let me know what do here? Other than that the laptop runs fine and gpu never goes over 65°c. Thank you all!

 

Hi I have a GTX 1080 model and it makes a loud hissing sound sometimes for a few settings when it wakes from sleep has anyone experienced this?

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The screen on the MSI is superior and their screens don't suffer from the backlight bleeding which has plagued Alienware for years all the way since the Alienware 18. It's 120hz /5ms but with an FHD resolution, much easier to red text/see stuff on an FHD resolution in a laptop. The colors are the most vibrant and natural looking in any laptop I've owned before and it has no horizontal banding issue.

 

Only from my ex-girlfriend.

 

The newer MSI offerings have lots of issues with throttling during gameplay. Not sure what that is all about but I hear many complain on the MSI threads

 

So, after spending 2 hours across 3 phone calls with Dell, they are still refusing to send someone out to repaste my 17r4. Each tech is claiming that the normal operating temp for the i7-6820HK is 100 degrees, which they show me on the Intel Website Tech Spec Sheet. They also claim that cores 1 and 3 should be operating at 100 degrees without any issues and the other cores will be significantly lower. Below is what I sent my support tech after he told me to call back or email him after I ran Watchdogs 2 for a little while since he didn't have time to sit with me any longer. Classy. I have yet to hear back from him. With an issue that is so widespread, why is Dell refusing to properly take care of their customers? I currently have a $3500 laptop that I am terrified to use to its potential. If I wanted to stick to no gaming, I would have kept my Surface Book. For the price I could have kept the Surface Book and had a nice gaming desktop. My Alienware 17 R4 model is the i7-6820HK w/GTX1080, qHD G-Sync, 32gb Ram, 1TB SSD + 1TB HDD, Killer 1535, Tobii, ship date of December 23rd. Fan runs constantly, temps during gaming is 100 on 2 of 4 cores. The GTX1080 sits just below 80 degrees. Constant stuttering and freezing during just web browsing, even while typing this message now. Battery life is less than 2 hours thanks to the fan running nearly full power from power on. I want to love this thing, material and build quality is so awesome, it should be an absolute beast with no issues for the money though. Here is the email I sent my tech support rep:
"Walter,
Here is a screen shot of my temps after about 30 minutes of playing the game. Please note the max temps. All cores hit over 90. CPUID notes 2 cores at 100, with another at 96, and the lowest at 92. There is also a noticeable variance in core temps, indicating an uneven application of thermal paste. My concern is that the heat sink may begin to warp as portions of the core are so varied in temps. There is an extensive amount of research on notebookreview regarding this model, with many owners achieving sub 80 temps under stress on all cores after repasting themselves. Also attached is a pic of the drop in FPS, all the way down to 25fps in the game. This is the most powerful video card made, with a fully spec'd out laptop, it should have no issues maintaining 60fps in a game. Please advise. "

 

Try with only stress FPU checked in Aida64 system stability test

Edit: @Jason Murrell Return it and ask for refund

 

Both issues are still here with all BIOS versions: dropping and charging battery even if the power supply is plugged in and G-sync black screen flashing when gaming from time to time. Furthermore i have noticed that with BIOS 1.0.9 i'm unable to boot often. The black screen appears after BIOS logo screen and then it stops here. Hard reset is required, then next boot procedure is ok.

 

Deleted post

 

So, a temp that causes throttling is "normal"? As I have said before with regards to Twitter statements from Frank A etc, when the people in charge of the economy starts look at how much it would cost to correct X, Y and Z, it is probable that any previous promises are now forgotten...

 

Its not normal even though it is allowed as a max operating temperature. THey point to the intel white papers of these CPU's but it is a max allowed temperature. This doesnt mean 24/7 would be okay. I personally would go for a repaste and a fix no matter what. LOng term reliability becomes very questionable with those temps. Also you will get so called thermal paste pump out are spots where the cores become to hot because of the larger space.

 

Jason,

I can attest to the fact that the machine that you purchased IS indeed a fantastic laptop, as I have the same one, sans the 1TB SSD (only have the 512MB)... When I'm not gaming, the fan is nice and quiet (have to actually listen for it), and when I am playing, the noise of the fan is drowned out by the game and my concentration of "taking care of business"...

I can attest to the fact that Team LHZ and other seasoned members here will help you, but you need to help them, too... Read through the forum and see what monitoring/benchmarking tools are used, take some screen shots and show us your rig. Sure, you showed this "Walter" (if that's even his real name) guy, but we want to see what's going on as well so we can try to help.

For the price of the machine, I would expect nothing less than absolute perfection, but that isn't the case anymore. Your system as well as mine were made in some factory in China, where quality control does not seem to be up to manufacturing standards that we would have here in the USA... (system would probably cost substantially more though if made here though..)

There is a ton of information on how to re-paste / re-pad your system, and the results speak for themselves. Don't want to do that? Team LHZ will do the work for you, just PM them and work out a deal.

Not sure about the stuttering and freezing during normal use, as I haven't experienced that...

2 hours battery life? Is that during normal use or gaming? If it's just browsing and not gaming, how are your power management settings? If it is during gaming, well, 2 hours is pretty good for the specs that this thing has...

The bad news is that your system needs some tweaking right out of the box, the great news is that you've found the right place to get help and answers to your questions..

I look forward to reading about your experience as you work through your issues and come to experience the full potential that your system has.

Good luck!!

CP

 

Here's a real world test, Fire up any AV(WD is best for high CPU usage), run a custom scan of C drive. At the same time open up your favorite game and start playing. Just enable MSI AB OSD feature to observe FPS,CPU usage,GPU usage and also their temps. Mine went 100C at full load and only core 3 and 4 were throttling. Core 0 and 1 were at 94C and still going strong and I had no stutter and lags whatsoever. I bet only fan profiles were less aggressive causing temp to ramp up and as per @Papusan's advice I used HWInfo custom fan profile during gameplay. Averages around 65-75C on both CPU and GPU with only game running.

 

I didn't check the gs series threads but, the gt's are throttle free and gt73vr appears to be the only high end laptop that, doesn't need work under the hood to unleash it's potential with good temperatures and acceptable noise levels!

 

Sounds about the same as mine. I decided to leave mine as is. The difference is not too great and the max temps are well below the point I'll get thermal throttling (especially with the undervolt). Unless you plan on really pushing things you'll probably not have any problems with it.

 

Anyone looking to even out there core differentials might want to take a look at adding a .1mm copper shim between there heatsink. I gave it a shot and it seemed to have fixed most of my issues. Just sat in the center of town in the witcher 3 at 3.8ghz for about a half an hour which saw a max temp of 72,68,69,68. That was in the best spot i could find that put 88% load on the CPU and a 99% load on the gpu. Those are the closest cores ive seen so far. I was originally at 25c+ differentials when i received the laptop. Dropped 10c+ with a repaste, and dropped another 3-4c with bending the arm, but still had a 10-12c difference with cores 0/2 even after all that. Now with a shim #0 is only 4c ahead and #2 is only 1c. So im definitely happy with the results.

 

If only Dellienware thought of that during production...

 

Any thoughts on if the AW17 R4 with Kaby Lake has better thermals than the ones with Sky Lake? Yes, I know the CPUs shouldn't differ but who knows, maybe Dell will finally learn how to put together a laptop in production.

 

Hey all. Just want to report on the condition of my AW 17 R4 (GTX 1080) after I got a heatsink upgrade + repaste done by Dell Rep (the paste was also provided by Dell). It's been a month since it happened and max temps while playing Overwatch for 3 hours are 79/76/77/76 with GPU 69. This is with OC Level 1 which pretty much consistently runs the CPU cores on 3.7x. I know it's not the best, but atleast Dell is trying to do a good job at making overclocking more viable than it was before when these new Alienwares launched.

 

But LM is soo good!

8 hrs stress testing the CPU running OCCT!

 

Yeah I just hate the core differential is all thanks for replying.

 

Did you change out your thermal pads that cover the fet chips next to the cpu? According to iunlock dell used too thick (0.5mm) of a pad on those chips and that caused the cpu heat sink to tilt at a slight angle. To remedy it use fujipoly 0.1mm thermal pad to even out the heat sink.

 

My 17R4 arrived today. It took only 8 days from when I ordered it to delivery, which is really impressive. I'm still pissed at Dell because of their screwups on my last two orders though.

I'm deciding if I'm going to install any games on it now, or if I'm going to go get another SSD to drop in it.

 

Get the extra ssd.

 

Perhaps you should start by making sure there isn't a third screw up?

 

What is the easiest way to reinstall OS on another harddrive? Bought the Alienware without an SSD because I had one at home. Is there any backup tool or something?

 

Keep trying, you'll get a tech that understands the situation and will service the laptop. Ask to have it escalated to a Manager, complain to the Sales guy and let him handle getting you service if you must.

Let them all know you won't accept this, and will return it for a refund as it is not suitable for your needs.

100c is the point the CPU shuts down completely to protect itself, about 93c is the thermal throttling point. The thermal throttling point starts turning down the CPU's performance and that is the point to make to the tech's, you aren't getting full performance from your laptop if the CPU on any core is thermal throttling.

Don't let them drag this out past your return date, you won't be able to get a full refund easily past that date. Set it up so you can return it for a full refund, get that date in writing and a return authorization now so you are prepared just in case they don't get this resolved in time.

You can always re-order after getting your Refund back - don't pay for a 2nd laptop until you have your cash from the 1st in hand. There have been people stuck for months in that limbo.

Good luck

 

You can use Macrium Reflect (Free) to image the original boot drive, and make a Macrium Reflect (Free) usb restore boot drive, and then restore to the newly installed SSD. That way you have both a full backup - in case you want to restore again later.

Or you could install the SSD, and use Macrium Reflect (Free) to directly image copy from the HDD to the SSD - you can resize the original partitions to fit the differently sized SSD. Then remove the HDD and boot on the newly imaged SSD.

Macrium Reflect Free Current Version:
6.3.1665 (12 December 2016)
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

 

Yeah i just removed the thermal pad all together and just put a layer of kyronaut on there instead. It didnt seem to really help my situation much though. The only thing so far that has manage to completely remove my core differentials is that shim.

 

Already ran OCCT for 20 minutes. Temps topped out at 72C with a 7C core differential. Can't tell if there's backlight bleed because my condo is too bright right now, but I'd say the screen is WAY better than the one from my previous Inspiron 17 (2012 era).

This laptop feels SOLID compared to anything else I've used in the past.

 

72 degrees is what I get at idle with OC disabled...

 

Looks like I lucked out.

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So, should I dare to give a service technician a chance to repaste etc or just send back yet another AW17? Guessing that unlock and co doesnt do to many road trips in northern Europe


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You should try undervolting with intel extreme tuning. Mine was topping out at 80°c with a core difference of 13°c, core 3 being the coolest.

I was able to undervolt and be stable at -0.150 and now my 17r4 temps never go over 70 and I have about a 10° core variance.

What does you gpu top out at?

 

New QHD LCD coming in a couple of weeks. (no lines)
An insider Dell guy that has seen it says "It's gorgeous".

 

Wow.. then it will come out with new 7820hk+gtx1080 at the same time maybe..? I dont want to wait for two different reasons! Cant wait any looonger