*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Yet there are also plenty of proficient people here (more than I think you're giving credit to) as well who are more than capable of a few tweaks and following a set of instructions.

Therefore both viewpoints are valid and I along with most people in this forum would fit into the latter group. Hence my comment on @iunlock review is much more relevant

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

I'm going to try to get those both in for review. Also the MSI Raider.

 

Please don't underestimate my ability to underestimate, it's a skill I've honed over many years of viewing disappointing results from amateurs reworking their own laptops.

I am talking about the physical tear down of the laptop to get at the task of re-pasting, re-padding, and bending metal (arm) which most people would not get anywhere near.

You are underestimating the dangers involved for inexperienced people. Even with good instructions, videos, etc, you would be surprised at the variations people find acceptable in their minds translating what they see to what they do. It's not pretty.

I don't recommend people tear apart their brand new $3,000 laptop to make it work right, that's nutz.

It should work out of the box, and if the odds are high enough that people are swapping 2 or 3 or more laptops to get a "good one", more likely "good enough because I'm worn out swapping laptops", then they should stay away from that product in the first place.

That level of physical teardown is unrealistic for most people. Those that are uncomfortable with the thought of pulling apart their laptop have good reason to be uncomfortable, and they are the vast majority of laptop buyers.

Putting out rosey reports from the end product of many hours of expert skilled work, skills gained by working on dozens of laptops, aren't comparable to the first time, or even 2nd or 3rd time novice.

The difference between out of the box - unacceptable, vs. professional rework, is huge and it's not a fair example to give the average buyer that has no idea what they would be getting themselves into by trying to "follow instructions" themselves the expectation of a 100% lovely result.

The reason I say this is because of the volume of "basket" cases I see where people get them apart and can't get them back together.

The rest are the sad reports of constant re-working the re-work to perfect their skills to the point of being happy with the outcome. Usually over weeks and months, sometimes years.

Are there people that will be successful the first time they rework an Alienware 17r4?

So far noone including @iunlock - he pulled apart the first one he worked on several times perfecting the rework. Even with the results of his efforts people still report problems with hit and miss results that require trying again and again.

It's not as simple as all that sounds, it's a skill that unless you have done handiwork gaining dexterity over many years previously you will have a learning curve that translates into multiple attempts.

The Alienware 17r4 has a high percentage of sucking for a long time from out of the box to working, to having lasting success, those are the facts laid out by owner after owner in this and other threads.

 

I Agree but it doesn't have to be 100% perfect, no laptop ever is let alone a gaming one. Point is with a little bit of rework under the hood, you can make a phenomenal difference. I.e. 25-30C reduction in CPU temps which in turn would cover off almost all other issues as well.

Anyone doing a little bit of research before buying such a laptop as this would realise it and accept that. It's not a standard laptop sale and inevitably the more money something costs, the more research people do and the more niche the clientele are.

Still healthy debate, all good stuff

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

It's funny, the more expensive laptops seem to get more impulse buys, with lots of surprised posts coming back months after purchase - "hey, what the hell, this thing is running *hot*!"

There are people that will have / take the time to do the proper research, but they seem to be in the minority given watching years of posts.

Of course those that are active here are the exception, but most people don't find this place until *after* they discover a problem, few think to do the pre-research to discover issues that might exist ahead of time, unless they've already been burned previously.

What I say isn't for the persistent DIY hardware tuner, it's for the vast majority that just want a working laptop out of the box so they can get the gaming / work experience they think they are paying for.

You'll see a lot of comments like, "You'd think a $2,000, or $3,000, or higher priced laptop would work as expected out of the box without overheating", that's the high end laptop buyer that wants to use the laptop as a means to an end, not as an end unto itself.

The Alienware laptops as they are now are great DIY laptops, and @iunlock 's reviews are aimed at that DIY crowd, not at the buyer that expects their laptop to work as advertised out of the box.

Alienware 17 R4, Dell is a mess

Alienware 17 R4 GTX1080 in game random Stutter & Freeze

Second Alienware 17r4 - Thermals

Alienware 17 R4 - CPU thermal issues

[Alienware 17R4 / 15R3] - Disassembly + Repaste Guide + Results

[CPU + GPU Temperatures + Benchmarks] - Alienware 17 R4 / 15 R3

And, it's been going on for a loooong time

Warning: Some i7-6820HKs and i7-6700HQ have Uneven Core Temps due to Uneven Heatsink

 

Just look in different forum, sub-forum, threads and posts... Nothing is near this overheating / uneven core temp mess and other similar problems as with the latest model from Alienware. In terms of problems as a whole... There has been 3 years of eternal mess. Started with 180w psu+980m and fully throttling early 2015. From crises to crises @hmscott And I have seen a lot of threads/posts. Not only on NBR.

 

No point if your already up and running, but if your doing it again down the road that is the path you can take if you want to run raid.

 

This is just my 2 cents.

I have never opened up a laptop beyond replacing a drive or the ram, but I do have a good amount of experience working on desktops (which is basically just Legos). The 17R4 was the first laptop that I've repasted, and although I had a small scare when I first put it back together (pads were too thick and gpu didn't touch the heatsink), I quickly figured it out and the repaste was a success. The detailed guides online were the only reason I attempted this, otherwise I would have stayed away from buying a 17R4 with a 7820HK in the first place.

I would never recommend someone who has never tweaked a PC and put together a desktop before to even buy a 17R4, unless they have a friend they can trust to do this or they're willing to deal with the headaches of several visits and repairs by a Dell technician.

For me, I love tinkering so I guess I'm in the DIY crowd. However, I'd never pay full price for this laptop, if I were spending this much I'd look elsewhere. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to tinker and get a fanstic deal on a GTX1080 laptop for $1400 from the outlet. But, I ended up with one of the worst out of the box performers going this route. Prey crashed in 15 min due to thermals, throttling on benchmarks down to 2.6ghz, these were real world issues that should have been caught by QA. It was obviously returned by a frustrated customer before me and never tested before it was resold. And my journey is not over yet, as you can see in my recent posts in other threads.

In all honesty I think the folks at Alienware are trying. But Overlord Dell's ultimate goal is profits, and they have the pocket books. I still appreciate all the engineering that goes into a machine like this, and even the triangle design was probably fine during initial testing on 7700 + 1070. 7820+1080 is still a very small niche market, and not the focus of their cost efficient design.

 

I think potential AW laptops should come w a disclaimer that they'll most certainly overheat when overclocked without any repaste. From what I understand the newer stocks stay within acceptable/mediocre temps at stock speed? The general consensus certainly seems to be that Clevo and MSI work much better than the Alienware out of the box both at stock speeds and w a slight cpu/gpu overclock. Not only that but the Clevo/MSI models are significantly easier to tear down for repasting.

My guess is that most people buying gaming laptops who dont frequent this site are casual gamers who as you said shouldn't have to tear apart a laptop to simply get it working w a slight overclock... and in that regard Alienware certainly can do better.

I just question whether most people on this forum would truly buy such high end gaming laptops without any repaste? I cant speak for others, but I've only recently got back into the high end gaming portable scene and even a noob like me knows that there isnt much sense in buying a TOTL monster if you're not going to optimize it both in hardware (a la iunlock) and software (a la phoenix)... if Alienware and other gaming brands go out of their way to advertise their overclocking potential, wouldnt it make sense to understand that obviously mass manufactured factory pasted cpu/gpus wont nearly perform as well as a properly repasted laptop? That nearly all of them will thermal throttle with mildly aggressive overclocking? Thus the unspoken agreement that a proper repasting is sort of mandatory, stock speed temps be damned? Mind you, I only speak within the presumably tiny tiny niche gaming laptop industry. I'm also aware that most proper disassembly and repasting instructions are not readily available to the non english speaking audience, and that's a big problem.

Personally, I'm glad that the new Alienware series is built like such a tank. It is quite a bit tougher to rip it apart than say an MSI/Clevo but it's so much more solidly built... other than the tripod crap, I find it quite an excellently industrial designed interior. Just like Gordon Murray said that designing his eco city car on a mass industrial scale is a much more difficult task than designing his Mclaren F1, it's clear to see even from pictures that the Aw17 r4's design is very intricate, fairly complex, and quite clearly a step ahead of the competition. Obviously they fell short on the follow through, that is, the QC manufacturing. The Alienware has a higher learning curve than the other gaming brands... and I think anyone considering the laptop should be made aware of this disclaimer... and that it's highly likely to have lousy temps out of the box.

But the end result after a decent effort is that the Alienware has some of the best cooling temps in a much more attractive form factor than the other brands.

Yes, I had a pretty successful repaste attempt... and it was my first time taking apart a laptop. I was very apprehensive and quite nervous at how complicated the disassembly process looked at first, but I also understood that there'd be no point buying the Aw17 r4 if I didnt go through the effort of repasting it... that'd be like buying a supercar (sorry, I know... yet another pathetic analogy comparing mediocre designed mass produced gaming laptops to truly high end bespoke machines... but for some reason gamers seemingly all tend to be into high end automobiles so it's just easier...) and feeding it crappy fuel, and outfitting it w standard tires... that's not to say that Alienwares shouldn't work well out of the box w a slight overclock like other gaming brands do.. They absolutely should!!

Like you mentioned, my temps are nowhere near iunlock's best... but whose's are?!? My CPU/GPU temps wont ever go above 77/66 (now 71/62 with isolation gel pads) without any throttling, and that was with two different laptops (I accidentally knocked over the first one, and Dell promptly replaced the whole package which I thought was a bit overkill... but excellent service)... both laptops had crappy out of box temps, and both responded similarly well to my repasting efforts. The several repasting attempts you refer to by iunlock achieve results of low 60/60s... that's just ridiculous, but hey he's a pro, and were I in the US, I would've definitely sent mine in for a professional repaste.

I should also add that tearing apart the AW17 R4 is quite a bit easier than it looks... it's really quite, dare I say, simple?... and that's coming from a complete beginner. I barely had to look at my own written instructions the second time round. I think if a complete beginner like me could do it, certainly anyone else could as well... The official Dell disassembly instruction manuals are excellent... it's really hard to go wrong there... then it's simply a matter of cleaning (easy), repasting (super easy w traditional paste like kryonaut... quite tricky with liquid metal), and repadding (a huge pain in the ass, but quite straightforward w careful second looks at whether the heatsink is balanced or not) Yes, absolutely the Alienware has a steeper learning curve, but the results are so worth it, and I found the whole process frankly quite accessible and rewarding

 

Indeed. The sad truth is, all high end laptops need work with the oil and tires changed to something better.

All valid points. Healthy debate indeed... Both sides just as equal...

It's true... I get so many systems that were, "attempts," needing to be fixed. About 30% of the units that flow across my work table are ambitious attempted victims lol... I've seen it all..

The biggest issue is that most people don't have the proper tools or a properly equipped shop at their disposal.

True, for someone that is comfortable and familiar with tearing apart computers, even a simple repaste would be better than the stock cement tooth paste.

A lot of people associate, "expensive" with "it must be good." I see it all the time.

All laptops have issues, but yes AW receives the most attention due to it being the most popular. The tripod mess along with the Crappy stock paste and toilet paper thermal pads didn't do it much justice and for that they deserve the negative press... Just incredible that Dell thought it was okay to go with a tripod mess...


::iunlock::

 

This was in single player.

Gotcha. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you.

 

What is the part # for the latest heatsink for 1080 7820? Mine is currently AT1QB009ZC0, wondering if I should try for a replacement.

 

Due to a catastrophe of nature (Hurricane Harvey) ... I've found myself in a Marriot Hotel for the next 30 days (I live in Houston; our home was basically destroyed). Once in the hotel, the first thing I did was convert the rooms "office" desk in to a notebook gaming station ... LOL ... it's the first time I've had an opportunity to use my AW17 as a truly portable gaming system ... using it's 1080p IPS screen with no external monitor ... no external keyboard ... and man ... even at this late date, my appreciation for this machine just gets greater and greater.

What a life saver! I've honestly enjoyed gaming on the laptop screen just as much as on my full size desktop monitors (which I use with the AW17 at work) ... I find myself no less immersed in any given game than with the bigger screens ... and with the screen overclocked to 100hz ... and being a particularly *perfect* example of AW's 1080p IPS screen? I honestly think the colors and overall image quality is on par with any monitor I've ever used ... desktop or otherwise ... just *SICKENING* colors/contrast ... and did I mention that the panel overclocks to 100hz as easy as spitting?

There are certainly worse ways to shelter.

;-)

By the way, I've been playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and can't praise it highly enough. It's cerebral, endearing, *very* well written and voice acted ... it's a beautifully rendered metaphor and just a gem of an indie title. I highly recommend you spend the money on it:

...



...

BTW: we managed to save all of our electronics ... TV's/computers/speakers/etc. ... we set them up about 5ft off the house floor when we evacuated. House is currently being rebuilt ... man what a trauma ...

Joel

 

Nicely said; I like your writing style.

I happened to land upon a perfect 1070 machine; never a single issue: perfect chassis/keyboard, perfect screen, zero temp issues, etc.. Grateful for that as it's hands down the best bit of portable computer gear I've ever owned.

That said, your points are well made.

Joel

 

That's great it's good to hear it's possible to get a good one, and glad to hear it's coming through for you when it counts.

Sorry to hear about the Harvey mess, and I hope the recovery goes smoothly, and I hope you enjoy your after disaster gaming time while it lasts, and look forward to hearing your happy result when the rebuild is done.

 

Anyone with Alienware r4 7820hk gtx1080 4k screen?

I have a line at the bottom of my screen - this only happens when the laptop is in direct gpu mode (not using switchable gpu mode).

I've attached an image.

Alienware support are saying it's a intel driver issue related to uhd and kaby lake and are aware of the issue, but are unable to resolve at this time.

Does anyone who has the exact spec machine above (UHD, gtx1080 kaby lake) have this issue when using the laptop in direct descrete gpu mode?

 

Maybe it's game specific. I don't have that issue in any of the games I play in dgpu mode.

What game is that?

 

It happens in any game. Do you have the kaby lake 1080 4k screen?

 

I'm glad it's working out for you. After all, we buy these things so we can game on the go.

But more importantly, it's good to hear that you and your family are safe. Stay dry!

 

The AW17 (GTX1070/1080p) is working dreamily ... really ... can't find a single thing to complain about. In fact, I just yesterday brought my Acer XB270HU external monitor up to my room .. 27" .. 1440p ... 144hz G sync ... and I'm completely surprised at how well the mobile 1070 handles 1440p content ... doesn't really break a sweat, really ... it was either bring the monitor to the hotel or put it in storage and so ... no brainer ... these are great days to be a geek in trouble.

 

That's awesome. If my unit gets sent down there for the cleanup then I'll be bringing mine for a little evening game time.

I almost went with the 1070 but cancelled my order because the sale prices changed and I got the 1080 for only $50 more.

 

Can I upgrade the CPU in my R4? It has a 7700HQ in it now, and I wanted to put a 7700K or better in it.

 

Well 7700k is lgA and 7700hq is bga so bga is not
Socketed you cannot swap


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Whoa dude. That monitor has very good response times for an IPS with overdrive on normal and 144hz. Average is 5.5ms and highest is 6.9. With almost no overshoot. That is the gaming IPS I would get if I wanted an IPS. Also thank you for showing me that game it looks like a real quality made game in the days of call of duty. Also the input lag is measured at NOTHING so thats awesome.

 

No.

Currently Alienware only uses BGA chips and they cannot be replaced or upgraded without changing the motherboard (I guess, technically, you could pay someone to remove the CPU and solder a new one on but the cost would likely be prohibitive and I don't think that is really feasible).

 

Depends if Dell use the same Mobile chipset for 7700 and 7820

 

Does anyone have weird speaker crackling?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8wQ9TblO4N9SThCSzdGbVR1aEU

Not really obvious when listening to music or playing games. Only certain frequencies make it resonate like this.
But changing Windows 10 volume ahh ma gawd!

 

Hi all - I posted this in general but i figured this would probably be the best place since i'm asking about this particular unit.

I've been contemplating upgrading my current sager np8672s (980m) to an AW 17r4. I'm primarily looking into getting a 1080 with gsync (not 4k). I'm no stranger to big/heavy builds as my laptop prior to this was a sager np93xx and with the massive 300+W brick(~13 lbs).

I'm gravitating towards the AW primarily because of the top notch build quality, I'm sick of dealing with plastic and flex as well as the upgraded internals and 120hz display. Additionally, I'm a fan of RGB and all things "gaming" as long as i can subdue it when need be and it's why I'm staying away from all the red/black laptops. I need this to be discreet enough to blend in and light it up when i want to geek out. With all that being said, I have 2 questions:

1- I'm seeing a lot of concerning issues with heat sink primarily due to v bios errors and/or sub-par paste but I also did see @iunlock 's video showing the updated paste job (DEC+) which potentially addresses those issues. Are these issues still prevalent? Will i still need to re-paste? I know from experience those that are having a problem will shout from rooftops vs. those that aren't as vocal.

(Worse case I'm stateside and I know how good Dell customer service with our dell precision laptop.)

2- I've been quoted $2320 Out the door for a 1080 and i7 7820k + 120hz g-sync panel. Is that a fair price or are there any additional savings to be had?

thanks!

 

Dell says the heating issues are resolved. They've updated the heatsink units and started using better paste on the CPU. My unit has been good on temps (70 CPU/59 GPU). If you repaste and undervolt you can definitely do better.

This is just my experience with a unit built in August 2017 - YMMV.

The price could be good or bad depending on if it includes tax and ram/SSD/warranty upgrades. I got my bare bones 7820HK/120hz/1080 unit for $2095 including tax with a 1 year warranty + accidental damage. I did the memory and storage upgrades myself.

 

So, is it soldered on there, or I just have to get something like the 7820HK?

 

Yeah, its BGA aka soldered on MB

 

It is soldered but, in theory, you could pay someone to detach your current CPU and, provided the chipset was the same, solder the 7820HK onto the board. That said, it would be easier, and likely cheaper, to buy an entirely new board with the new CPU and upgrading CPUs on BGA boards isn't realistic.

 

Problem is procuring the 7820HK chips. Been looking for one to test this out, but cant find it anywhere.

 

Thanks for the clarification, it's definitely looking like it's the unit i'll be going with. Regarding pricing, the $2300 quoted is including tax and shipping for the 7820hk / 120hz / 1080 without ssd and only 8gb ram.. how did you get them down to that much?

 

I have been looking at purchasing the 17r4 for the last couple of months and finally pulled the trigger a few weeks back during one of Dells sales and was able to get the 7820hk/4k monitor/GTX 1080/16gb of 2667 ram/128gb ssd w/1tb hard drive for $2174 including tax and shipping. The only additional discount I was able to add to their sale price was a 10% discount that was offered due to the company I work for. There are numerous companies that offer employee pricing with Dell and I believe Dell also offers some kind of school specials so you may want to see if any of that applies for you.

Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk

 

I appreciate the info. I'm not really looking to do it now, but knowing my options for later down the line is always good.

 

I had a 10% off coupon and this was just before the warranty options changed 2 weeks ago so you didn't have this "premium support plus" stuff they have now. Mine came with the standard 1 year on site after remote diagnosis included and I paid $59 for the accidental damage. Now they are forcing you to get the 1 year premium support on the 1080 models which adds about $100 to the base price.

TLDR I got really lucky. I think ebates still has 10% cash back from dell this week so you should definitely sign up for that if you can.

 

Sold my 10 month old Alienware 15 R3 and upgraded to the 17" R4. yay! I already have pads, paste, extra ram and nvme drives waiting for the laptop to come!

 

Ah, that's interesting. I ended up calling them and just pretty much asking nicely that the prices i'm seeing and what i'm quoted don't make me feel fuzzy inside ( ) and they just gave me $150 cash back, haha. puts me right around 2170 ish with expedited shipping.

Also i just got an update saying my laptop will be here tomorrow (9/7)! I placed the order over the week end as a placeholder and they stated it was a 30 day trial period and they would price match if the price drops. Kind of psyched! Just need to hit up amazon/microcenter for m.2s and Ram!

 

Anyone having ALT-Tab issues? I have the 4k screen and my games run at 1080p. Some times when i alt tab I can not alt tab back into the game it stays minimized. The only thing that works is rebooting the computer.

 

That's just something that happens when you alt-tab - some games really don't like it and can glitch.
It's not an Alienware issue so much as something that can be expected to happen occasionally.

 

Only games that don't freak out when alt tabbing are steam games for me. Whenever I run any game non native on stuff like Origin, **** freaks out.

 

Try the left Alt key + Enter key. Often works for me to maximize games that otherwise won't after Alt-Tabbing out.

 

Bump!

 

Just got the laptop today, putting it through the paces to see if everything is in good condition.

I'm getting very good Temps, got worried initially with a jump to 90 but realized i put it downon a leather to grab something, haha. Overall I'm right at 76-81 ish on the gpu. These are the scores I'm getting for unigine heaven, thoughts?



I'm getting a weird facial recognition but where it says it can't recognize the camera but the camera app works just fine, must be a windows glitch, i'm not too worried since I will be reinstalling pro shortly. Anything else I should be on the lookout for?

Thanks!

 

Run firestrike on combined only no demo for 20 minutes. Report temps back. Just running heaven by itself is really hard to gauge temps.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Try running a demanding game like BF1 or PUBG while hwinfo64 runs in the background for 20 minutes to monitor your temps. You can turn on logging to see the spikes and where it settles out. Just make sure you're in the 70-80 range with minimal core differentials and I'd say you're good.

What RPM do your fans run at while gaming?

Mine run at a steady 4200 RPM whenever I play a game. Even with a CPU temp of 72 and GPU of 63.

This seems high to me but maybe I'm wrong?

 

What paste do you have on your laptop

 

I'm hovering at 66-71. I'm going to run a few more tests tonight but unfortunately my unit had a dead pixel so I called dell and they immediately sent out another one.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

i7-7820HK, GTX 1080
Just got my 17R4 back from iunlock. Ran the Unigine Heaven Benchmark. (Same settings as you...full screen, ultra, etc)
FPS: 137.1 Score: 3455 Min: 10 Max 272.8

Btw, Cores and GPU stayed in the 50Cs.