*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Yup, which is why I figure this won't be 100% fixed until the R5 - assuming they can source parts from a new vendor or use a new design without such tight tolerances.

 

All depends on if Dell will continue with the Tripod design. Less space on MB mean less place for screws. Aka Tripod it will be!!

 

This. It isn't like they stuck us with the tripod design just to piss people off. We talked to a Dell engineer quite awhile back and the tripod design was brought up and going back to the 4 screws was talked about. It can be done, but in order to do it you have to remove power delivery circuits and your going to lose features and performance, there was no way around it.

The size of the motherboards is tiny , especially compared to a desktop. You strip the motherboard out of these things and you quickly start to wonder how they can get as much as they did on that thing.

I am sure if they can find a way to go back to 4 screws they will , only time will tell.

 

idk... Tripod is sketcy but it's symetrical. I get the engineers point and it can stay on good

I don't think it's about space. MB isn't that tiny. Putting one more screw wouldn't require much effort, heatsink would have to be a little different with another arm and more machining, an extra USB too.

What it would require is an extra 5$ per unit and Dell can't take that!

 

Remember the AW17R2-4 has a big chassis as it is a 17,3 inches laptop, but Dell wanted same MB design as the smaller sister. They couldnt even put 3 fully sized M.2 slots, Max single 2.5" and max 2 ram slots on the tiny MB in the big chassis. And TRIPOD is the preffered HS design in all thin and lightweighted laptops today. It's everywhere due use of smallest possible MB... See also the Dell XPS line use similar TRIPOD. Why should DELL make it different for the next AW line?

 

That makes sense, except competing manufacturers making BGA gaming laptops mange a 4 screw design with 4 ram slots and extra I/O on their boards that occupy a similar footprint.

Dell is a huge company so if anyone has the R&D money it should be them.

 

Seems the 17r4's Wifi card has gone kaput already. 5th one to go out in the last 2 years. Can anyone reccomend a replacement wifi card that isnt the intel 8260?


Also, are there any particularly reputable LCD panel resellers?

 

Intel 8265?

 

All,

R4 here with the 7820 and 1080. So just got the system and want to make sure this is normal. The CPU at 4GHZ (-100mv) never breaks 80 to 86C mark during a long session of gaming or benchmarking. However, the GPU will creep to 88-90C slowly and stay there when loaded heavily in a game. The GPU core clock doesn't throttle, it stays in the 1750mhz range. Should I consider this a good machine and stick with it? Everything else is flawless and the CPU surprisingly stays cooler than the GPU in this case.

 

I would say that is a little hot on this GPU. However I think anyone buying this system should come to the facts that this will have to be repasted at the very least.

 

I just did another gaming run and this time the GPU maxed out at 88C. I'm going to stick with this. I don't have CPU temp issues, no stutter issues, no core temp variation, and the rest of the system is flawless. I'll repaste the GPU later down the road. I don't care what the temp is as long as I don't see major throttling. The GPU is maintaining boost clocks so I'm happy.

 

Sounds like you've got a good one. Are the fans working hard to maintain that 88-90c? A repaste might drop those temps another 5c but if you're not experiencing any throttling and have acceptable fan noise then there's no rush IMO.

The 1080 in my GT73VR will run at 84c solid with no throttle either so maybe that is the range that this new OC vbios from Dell is set to run at?

 

Over 80C gpu temp for gtx 1080 in Alienware 17r4 is absolute rubbish. It might be acceptable for msi oversized laptops but definitely not for Alienware. My laptop at 200W gpu power is struggling to exceed 65C. Typically hovers around 62C. Msi gt73, 75 despite having 10 or more heatpipes can never match Alienware cooling with just 3 heatpipes.

 

What are your ambient temps?

These whole temp discussions are worthless without a frame of reference.

 

Unless you've repasted with LM I have trouble believing that the 1080 peaks at 65C under load. The 1070 hits above that at ~50% load.

 

So I added some extra rubber to the feet and raised it about half inch(maybe a little less) and now the GPU maxes out at 79 to 80C. CPU max temp at 4GHZ during gaming was 79C. Looks like I have a winner here.

 

What where your temps without the feet?


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I ended up changing my order for an ssd. I was getting the 960 Pro 512GB, but it was going to be a couple more weeks until shipping. It has already been a couple weeks as is. I opted for a 1TB 960 EVO instead. I'll have that this coming Tuesday.

I want to do a clean install of Windows. Any suggestions on what I should put back on that came with the AW?

 

CPU was hitting around 85C in games and GPU was doing 88 to 90C. So big improvement. It also proves to me that the heat sinks are working well and the paste job must have been at least half *** good.

 

Ambient temp 23-25C. Even at 28C ambient my laptop will not cross 70C for gpu

 

No LM for me. The risk is not worth taking. I only use kryonaut. Even with LM u won't get much improvement on the gpu side. There are many data in this forum supporting this. Do a search.

 

I'm quite sure MSIBOOK Gt73 graphics run well under 80c in games @Phoenix can answer on this. I don't defend any MSIbooks but their cooling is better than the Tripod AW using. Even if both use better thermal paste. And the 1080 in MSI have well over 200w Tdp if I remember correct.
FYI. Below is the normal from Alienware 17R4 and 1080. MSI deliver better overall temp than AW out of the box... Never seen much complaints about overheating or high max temp in the MSI threads @hmscott

 

There is absolutely no doubt MSI cooling performance is better if compared to alienware out of the box on the CPU side. the Tripod CPU design is completely rubbish. I have gone through 6 heatsinks, 3 laptops, every single one came with CPU core temperature differential problem. This is regardless of CCI heatsink or Sunon heatsink and regardless of what revision those heatsinks are.

Having said that, their GPU side performance is actually very good. Extremely good i might add. Even at stock stamp thermal paste, under heavy load the temperature can still maintain around 70C. Once you removed the stock stamp and put kryonaut, the temperature will be hovering around 62C even when OC to 1.9GHz at around 200W. This is true for all the heatsinks and laptops i came across. Ambient temp is around 23-25C. If you look at the video interview i did with ownordisown, towards the end i showed the temperature stats and GPUz of my system playing BF1 for over 1 hour straight at OC speeds.

However, there are odd cases where the GPU temp is not as good as it should be, as seen reported by some of the owners here. Then again, there are odd cases where owners receive alienware laptops with minimal cpu core temperature issue out of the box too even though i find it hard to believe. I mean what are the chances of getting 6 heatsinks, 3 laptops all having over 10C cpu core temperature differential problems?

Even GT75VR with all the overkill number of heatpipes can produce somewhat comparable results with alienware 17 R4. If you refer to notebookcheck GT75VR review, under heavy load that laptop hit 100C for CPU and 85C for GPU. I wouldnt call it far better by any stretch. and it's fairly obvious that laptop suffer from CPU core temperature differential problem also, even with it's supposedly far superior cooling system.

Considering the fact Alienware achieved this with just 3 heatpipes, i would argue alienware have the more superior cooling system IF they get rid of the stupid tri pod CPU design.

 

Hello all... just joined the AW 17 R4 family. Ran into a good deal so decided to bite while I await new GPUs and CPUs in the coming year to 18 months.

Looking for info on two subjects...

First, are there any recommended heat sink or fan upgrades? I've already tore into the machine once and re-pasted the CPU/GPU, but I'm not perfectly happy so I'd like to do a little bit more. I've looked at a couple guides, but it almost seems like it would be better to install 3rd party fans or an improved heat sink setup. I haven't had much luck in sourcing something like that though.

Secondly... can the RAM speeds be increased from 2400Mhz? I currently have 32GB of 2800Mhz RAM installed, but it's locked to 2400Mhz. Not a big deal, but curious if possible.


I'll try to make my way through this thread, but 650+ pages will take a bit, ha.


7820HK / GTX 1080 / 32GB RAM / QHD 120Hz / Win10 Pro

 

My 1070 rarely hits 65C at 90-100% load with kryonaut but i have an undervolted 6700hq, repad, and laptop cooler.

 

I believe when I switched to one of the newer bioses it unlocked the ram settings in xtu. Somewhat annoying though because it would set my ram to lower freq and try to force a reboot if i wanted to change anything like core voltage. It was not the most recent bios but one of the ones before that.

 

Thanks for the tip... I tried XTU, but it was a no go for me. I tried 1.33x 20 for 2666Mhz and 1.00x 28 for 2800Mhz. All that happens is the computer reboots to black screen once or twice then boots to Windows where XTU says it couldn't apply the profile.

I don't see a way to apply an official XMP profile in XTU (I'm a noob to this program though) and google didn't result in any XMP profiles for download (I've never tried to download one before since XMP profiles have always been in the BIOS) and the 17 R4 doesn't seem to have any installed.

I tried looking up more detailed timings for the sticks, but all I can find are 18-18-18-43... but they don't list the multipliers or FSB stuff.

Going to assume it's not possible without a custom BIOS or update from Dell/Alienware. Would love to be wrong though.

These are the sticks if anyone has other ideas...

F4-2800C18D-32GRS
https://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-2800c18d-32grs

 

How did you accomplish to put in triple GPUs on a 17 r4?

 

The point was to show 2800mhz working for daily use

 

So you really have a triple GPU setup along with faster RAM? I think XTU scores would be around 1000 bone stock and around 1500 when OC'ed to 4GHz, correct?

 

You might have to adjust the timings so that they are the same speed or slower (in terms of time). Ram timings are in cycles so when you up the mhz they should be increased by at least the same proportion. You might get lucky and be able to round down squeezing out a little more speed but the safe way would be to round up.
So 18-18-18-43 would be 21-21-21-51 if you round up or 21-21-21-50 if youre feeling frisky enough to round down.

 

Could be The Skylake version manage this but not the newer Kaby version of the Awbook And it can vary on the (IMC)controller.

What have you eat today?

 

KabyLake is even better at handling this and more.

 

I know bruh, but we talk about DELLIENWARE aka Dell!! And not all BGAbooks from the different OEMs handle much faster than 2400/2666 ram. Some you can't see a difference between Skylake and Kaby. It's the OEM/IMC lottery

 

@bloodhawk

Thank you so much for the pictures of the timings, that helped a bunch as that gave me the reference I needed. I definitely needed to further adjust the timings (hey, it's been a while, ha). My RAM is now running at 2800Mhz (18-18-18-43). I've also managed to get the CPU running stable at 4.1Ghz with a -0.100mV undervolt. After re-pasting a second time the CPU max temp hits 88c with Prime95... the GPU is hitting a max temp of 65c.... I feel I could push it a little more, but this is good for now. I'm sure these aren't amazing numbers by expert standards. Thank you to you all, the extra discussion really helped. Don't think it's too bad for a refurbished eBay purchase, lmao.

So... is there an unlocked BIOS mod or any fan mods out there to further increase cooling and reduce noise? ha.

 

Anyone experienced a decline in ssd write speed - I have sk hynx pc300 Nvme pcie 500gb.
Read speeds are still ok I.e 1900, however write speed has dropped to around 240mbs from 850mbs when I installed it 4 months ago.
Tried ssd firmware update - made no difference.
Attached an image of how the drive performed when 1st had it (march 17).
Anyone else experiencing drop in write speed in their pcie drives?

UPDATE - resolved the issue by reformatting ssd and re setting partitions, probably caused by cloning windows

 

I won't be able to report for a while, but there was a known issue with 840 EVOs a while back... I know that's not what you have... but just a random thought if the tech in this SSD is similar (I have no clue myself).

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2317978/samsung-evo-840-firmware-fix-slowdown-problem.html

 

Im thinking maybe a windows setting or intel rapid speed setting has changed or is interfering with the write speed. Ive formatted the drive but still slow write speeds for some reason. Also tried it in a different pcie slot in alienware but it makes no difference.

 

Try disabling power savings in IRST.

 

here is a firestrike run with my 17 R4, no thermal issues with a decent OC.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/21791816?

 

UPDATE - I resolved the issue by reformatting and re setting partitions, probably caused by cloning windows

 

Same for me and I think I know the reason why. To confirm it's the same for you, do you have Toshiba SSDs?

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No, I have the SK Hynix unit.
I've seen my PCH at around 83C too

I still experience freezing...

 

Nice

Here is mine 4.4ghz on the cpu
200/200 on the GPU

76 C was the max thermal.

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/13464147

 

Anyone use http://www.decalrus.com/ for skins? Curious if this left residue?

 

Are you using the video BIOS version: 86.04.5B.00.8F?
To be clear can you confirm that your ssds are sk hynix?
If so what temperature are these in hwinfo when your freezing / stuttering occurs?

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Hey mate where is this video with ownordisown and what vbios are you running? video BIOS version: 86.04.5B.00.8F?

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Im running the OC vBIOS, came with it installed from factory.
SK Hynix for sure. I had a Toshiba unit before and got a new one, freezing stayed the same. Highest I've seen it was like 55ºC. Old Toshiba went up to 90ºC sometimes.

I removed the liquid metal I had installed. You guys have to be careful with this stuff. Great performance yes, but both my GPU and CPU die now have weird spots on them, the heatsink was also very weird with a big silver spot that doesn't come out. I had to sand that b*tch down to get a smooth surface again.

Back to kryonaut for me. Let's see how it hangs on

 

Yeah good advice, my LM on my XPS leaked out onto the mobo under one of the VRAM chips and blew the GTX1050 :O

Seems like you haven't got SSD related freezing which is what I suspect my R4 has (I still have 90C Toshiba's). Having said that I'm wondering if the cause of all three issues is the new OC vbios... I'm sure my issues started when this was installed...

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