*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Thanks for the help and pointing me in the right direction , I just wouldn't feel feel comfortable trying to fix this myself though

 

Stuttering issue, so far exclusive to GTX 1080 models only, and it's a hit or miss.

CPU core temperature differential problem applies to all models, and chances of you getting it is very high.

Unfortunately, if you are not comfortable trying to fix it yourself, you might have to go MSI way and live with all the problems MSI have. and i must stress this, MSI issues are mostly not fixable by user. you cant replace cheap plastic with quality metal, you cant remove the warranty void sticker without voiding the warranty, you are very likely going to face dead pixel problems on your display (and im not sure if they will honor warranty for this because depending on where the dead pixels are, some manufacturer has guidelines as to what can be replaced and what is acceptable. but seeing how crooked they are in doing business, you might just have to live with it). The component quality is also generally lacking, (example my GT72 Sub woofer developed cracking noise after just 2 months using, and after 6 months or so, i get problems with the laptop not booting occasionally with no display, their windows 10 driver came out months after microsoft launched windows 10, etc etc). Basically, quality is not what you should expect from MSI in the first place. Let's not forget about after sales support. Despite having to deal with moron monkeys tech specialist, Dell/alienware support is top notch, second to none. Msi support is basically none existence. Given the choice i simply will not choose MSI anymore. But you do get a working machine with acceptable temperature and performance out of the box.

Also you get choices to fix your alienware, people like @iunlock , @Mobius 1 (basically team LHz) will do it for you for a fee if you live in the states. if you don't live in the states like me, it's all DIY.

 

What do you think about the Acer predator line? Or even Asus, razer, aorus?

 

Maybe not the correct forum asking for this.

I mean @hmscott said you don't void the warranty if you remove the stickers. He can probably give correct info.

 

Razer build quality is as good as alienware, but their ultra thin and lighter profile means you sacrifice performance because of heat and throttling. you also pay a pretty penny for a dumb down system. for example, their GTX 1080 laptop work at best in line with GTX1070 alienware laptop. but i get it, razer is simply sexy.

Acer is a relatively new comer, reviews seems improved for their new predator line, predator 17X with GTX1080. but i'm not sure about long term use.

Asus, like acer, is generally ok also. temps are good out of the box. if you want more details on acer and asus, you best head to their respective forums to check out. I've not owned any of those before, and my time with those laptops are very limited so i can't give you a long term experience comment.

But im sure they too have their quirks. I've been in this industry long enough to know there's no perfect build product.

 

It depends on what country and what reseller. In my country, warranty voids as soon as the sticker is torn. and they have every right to deny you warranty if the sticker is torn even though they said it's ok. MSI is a crooked company, the way they do business is not honest.

In my country, even though MSI claimed and marketed their laptop as upgradable, they refused to compensate any owners who bought GT72/GT80 when GTX1080 launched and simply told us off by saying it's not possible to upgrade, end of story. At least in US, EU, they compensate something. And they were very dismissive in doing so. i would not trust them as a company.

 

and you also have Clevo based system (they can come with many different brands depending on which company is selling them) using real desktop CPU which @Papusan strongly support provided you can get one in your country.

 

He's right. I've asked MSI multiple times and it's written in their policy. For US and Canada only, the warranty sticker doesn't apply. Everywhere else and your warranty is void. From what I understand, it's a legal matter.

 

It's like that. MSI is trying to use the legal system to justify not providing warranty. Unless you are forced to why should you seems to be there motto. "We sent you a laptop without putting in thermal paste and you opened it... wait you are not in North America sorry can't help you there warranty is void."

My coworker was asking me if my warranty was voided because I was messing with my Alienware lol. "You know you payed for 4 year warranty..... to lose it 3 days after you bought it would be a shame."

 

It depends on the region, that's why I always ask the vendor when I get a new laptop via a ticket after registering my laptop, to get on record they said I can upgrade the RAM, storage, and repaste if needed - and to do so usually requires piercing a "warranty sticker" to get to the screw to remove cover(s).

Asus, Acer, and MSI have all said it's fine (in USA), just don't break anything while you are in there or you have to be responsible for the cost of the repair, everything else is still covered by warranty.

 

I had an Asus for a short time and later an MSI for an equal short time (few days). The major issue with those brands vs Alienware/Dell or HP is customer support. I had an issue with my SSD in the alienware laptop and they send a replacement the same day. I have an issue with my spacebar not registering and I could have gotten the keyboard to replace it myself but this time I chose them to repair it (they are sending someone on friday). I even asked "what if I break something while replacing it" and customer support said: it's warranty if we ask you to do it. That's what I call service!

With the Asus I had trouble, shop said: send it back and we'll look. I had questions about the SSD in the MSI and shop said "Sorry we don't know, you can send it back". That's a huge difference in support. I know from experience that Asus support (even on brand new laptops) can mean you lose your laptop for 1-3 weeks.

I did repaste my alienware laptop, probably could have replaced keyboard too but I thought it would be interesting to see how a repair tech does it

 

Q: which is better for cooling PCH chip?

Top 2 are both aluminum bottom one is copper
Top left is 20mm x 20mm x 2mm
Top right is 20mm x 20mm x 4mm (it was cut to fit in high

all 3 were cut to fit 20mm x 20mm

 

The one with the most "surface" area, ridges and other projections above the surface count.

The flat copper would be the least cooling, with the 2 aluminum jobbers with more surface area will provide better air / heat exchange.

You could also try to "route" some air over that cooling PCH with some internally installed "walls" to direct the incoming air over it.

 

Ok thanks I am now looking at the sager np8157, I may give Alienware a shot though and just send it back if I have problems.

 

upper right is the kind im using. max surface area

 

well said. that's what i meant by aftersales service, second to none

 

Where do you recommend ordering from if I do purchase an Alienware? I see that HIDevolution does offer coollaboratory liquid ultra repaste.

 

where do u live?

 

you might wanna consider sending your laptop to services from team LHz for repaste and adjustment if you order online. they operate in the states

 

Anyone here ordered there laptop from HIDevoluion?

 

For the pch, aluminum for sure.

Cooper needs an outlet as it has higher thermal retention properties. ie.. It needs to be connecting / contacting the heat pipes to transfer the heat of that copper shim just becomes a bigger ball of fire.

Aluminum dissipates heat faster and with scenarios like the pch, this is the better choice.

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::iunlock::

 

Does 15 r3 7820hk with gtx 1070 have same pch or overheating problems like 17 r 7820hk 1080? i have sellers in uk who offer both systems refurbished 15 r3 for 1599£ and 17 r4 1999£
I'm still confused with one to choose . My new laptop will be connected to external monitor anyway AOC 2560x1440p 144 hz . Another thing is if 1070 will be ok for 2560x1440p 144hz ? even at medium settings like BF1? Thanks

 

PCH heat is not exclusive to GTX1080 only. Every single model from 13 to 17 will face this issue

 

delloutlet is the best place, i got my 7820 w/1080 for $1900 include tax after 300 ebate

 

Q: should I put on a thermal pad then the aluminum heatsink or should I use thermal paste?

(I know kind of a stupid question)

Saw the picture sorry got my answer. Heatsink + kruonaut and hot glue. Time to get to work.

 

You should know that most things are fixable... but then the questions arises why didn't Dell fix it lol and we are back to "there is a reason Apple is Apple and Alienware is a rebranded Dell"

But yeah these problems you can fix and unlike a Apple you can do it yourself.

 

i agree, things like this should not have got overlooked by the design team in the first place. Yes, PCH might be designed to operate at those temperatures, but look at the problems and throttling caused by PCH heating up to extreme temperatures. Other high end system manufacturers simply include either a passive heatsink or metal plate which connects to the main heatsink or a third fan to circulate air internally which helps cool the PCH and NVMe.

 

I'll go for aw 17 r 4 then. Arriving next week I'll post temps and benchmark once I got it

 

Just a FYI. Today at work when I had the thing open someone said "why did you buy a laptop instead of making one. You literally switched out every part besides the CPU and GPU on it."

What he said was true,

New ram
New ssd
New NVMe ssd
New wifi (Intel)
Modded the PCH
Fixed the CPU (hand to bend it)
Repaste CPU and GPU with liquid metal.

+ had to reopen it becuse I left the USB thingy a little loose so had to fix that after I repasted lol.

It's a lot of work and mine is going at 67°c while playing overwatch after modding.

(Most people just get a apple or a cheep $500 laptop if they go windows at work lol)

 

Anyone have experience ordering from HIDevolution? They say they adjust the thermal pads and offer to use coollaboratory ultra liquid metal

 

I have 5 friend's who bought refurbished alienware's from Ecomputers (ebay seller) and all of them have no issues with overheating out of the box . Few of them use LM Grizzly Cond just to get really good temps. If temps are not to bad i'll use LM and see how it go's

 

seeing a pretty nice dell deal right now.

7820hk, 1080, 4k, 128 ssd for $2254. Can also do ebates on it.

Worried about these stuttering issues though... gah.

 

Well my replacement laptop finally arrived this week to Colombia: i7 7820HK + gtx 1080 + 512 toshiba ssd, out of the box the CPU still gets very hot (up to 95C with ~5C core differential) and had to under volt it. My system arrived with K1.0.8 BIOS and OC vBios and I haven't seen any stuttering issue just the same temperature from last gen model.

As my first gaming laptop ever I picked Dell because the quality and premium support (maybe the only one extending international warranty to Latam) but I can't believe how Dell is handling this situation, It's just disappointing. I must admit however that temps issues are fixable as many have said in this forum. As a ANYBRAND customer I DO NOT expect to fix a $2k+ laptop problem but as an IT guy I'll just have to get my hands on it and do what Dell isn't to fix this s#it.

 

I didn't fix mine. I made a whole new Alienware 17 R4. I took the entire laptop apart and switched out every part that could be switched out. Then modded the PCH chip (btw thanks to the people on the forum on the input on which I should pick. The one that was suppose to be 4mm was really 8mm and the one that was suppose to be 2mm was really 4mm. The raspberry pi heatsink came in so I put it next to the heatsinks and it felt off so I measured it lol.)

So yeah wasted money on primium service. THAT IS BS. The only primium service I got was a ton of excuses and no fixes. So thank you to everyone for all your help specially on the PCH. 67°c in a AC (max temp) and around 75°c in the office (which ac kind of works and kind of does not) WAY better than 10 min of overwatch and the temp keep rising. Only problem I am getting is if I go past 4.3 the uneven temp show up again difference between highest and lowest core end up being over 10°c but this only stays for a few sec before going back to 5°c difference or less. So I don't know if I should open it up and bend it a little more or if I should wait 4-5 months till I have to do the repaste to do it.

Higest and lowest temp are less than 2°c deference between the cores thou.

 

Does the pch mod lower CPU temps or is it just something else that heats up? I'm about to use liquid metal on mine

 

Premium support got me an upgraded replacement laptop from the US to my house and no charge so speaking for myself it was a great deal after all

 

did you undervolt and by how much?

 

Premium support sent me a free replacement upgrade for my 17 r2 that didnt work correctly for a year and then asked me to please return the old one to retain the half year of premium support I had left. I kept both.

 

I undervolted to -0.050 for 4.3 then for 4.4 I leave it at 0.035

 

i find the best frequency to undervolt ratio is 4.1GHz undervolted to -110mV. Rock solid stable and cool.

 

Does anyone know the Dell part number for the 17R4 UHD 40pin eDP cable? I know any 40pin eDP for a 17.3" screen is compatible, but the webcam connector can be different.

I also have an extra GLOSSY 17.3" UHD 4K panel with 100% Adobe RGB and 400-nits brightness for 17R4/17.3" laptops, if you want to upgrade your screen.

 

Te mande un mensaje privado, tal vez pueda ayudarte con mi experiencia con el soporte de Latinoamerica.

Saludos

 

In few days comes from Dell support to change the monitor of my laptop (17 r4 uhd). I can tell you what the part number of the cable if you wait .. my monitor is sharp 4k, it is 100% AdobeRGB too. This monitor is crap, it is very difficult to calibrate correctly, the blue is totally uncontrolled. (Even with a colorimeter and spectrophotometer).

 

Hey guys, after considering buying an Acer/Asus/MSI/Clevo re-brand, I purchased a 17r4. Sold my 17 r3 for $450. Got a great buy on a 72-hour sale email notice from Dell. This is now my third Alienware laptop. The build was as follows: i7 6700HQ, GTX1060, 99w battery, 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD, Quad Hd 120hz g sync screen with Tobii eye tracking, Killer Wireless 1450, 180-watt power supply. So with $465 off from the sale, plus a $ 50 off coupon, and additional 2% off from the sales rep, who also added a free one year spills and falls warranty. With Dell preferred account got expedited and free shipping. Got the unit within 8 working days. To top off this killer deal, Dell must have run out of i7 6700HQ so I received my machine with the i7 7700HQ!! Set up my unit, removed both drives, replaced with a Samsung 250gb NMVe 960evo for boot, and Samsung 500gb 2.5" 850evo for storage. So far I have no negative issues to report. No light bleeds, no screen lines, no overheating when gaming. The TN panel is amazing for games. Running Doom at 1440p resolution and the visuals are amazing! It is too bad that some people are having issues but I must say fro the price this machine is unbeatable! The built quality is superb and everything just works so silkily smooth! Glad to have stuck with Alienware! looking forwards to years of fun with my 17r4.

 

Has anyone installed a 960evo and had a problem with the Samsung Magician not detecting the drive?

 

Running in RAID in the bios?

 

Yes! I was hoping not having to mess with changing that as it give a blue screen error if you do!

 

By the way pathfindercod, do you know how I can change my PC specs here below the dotted lines? I went to profile and did the edit but it has not changed!

 

Hey guys, can you help me with some info, please! I would like to update my computer info below the dotted lines on my posts, but I can't seem to find a way to edit and change! Thank you.