*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

I never understood why people pay for a repaste - for laptops that have a warranty. In the uk laptops have to be ‘fit for purpose’ - I have to say I have repasted mine a few times but it’s more for my satisfaction (a challenge) then anything else to see if I can get the temps down a little further... haha unless of course they are in the 90s then I request Alienware replace the heatsink or motherboard, which they do next day - I’ve had 4 a17 r4s (1080p, qhd and 2 4k versions) off the outlett (3 needed either a new heatsink (3 times) and 2 a replacement motherboard.

The issue is the parts (sometimes they are refurbished old parts). But they do fix the issue - in the case of 1 laptop I bought in July 17 they offered me a full refund in December. No complaints and not aware any other company offers the next day service dell do.

Anyway if your in the uk theres 20% off the dell outlett today

Ces - looks like we have a wait until summer for the new alienware 17,r5 given no announcements at ces 18 from nvidia re Volta and intel coffee lake.

 

Well I repasted my 17 R4. It's pretty much made no difference to the temperature and now the screen flickers.... I've submitted a warranty transfer request which apparently takes 10 days. Wish I'd never bothered now - no matter the price - as this is probably an expensive brick...

Can anyone suggest why the repaste hasn't affected temps and what the flickering might be?

Thank you

 

Sometimes people are really scared to get inside and still want to obtain the system, but with such re-paste prices.. well, my half-price offer is still valid

Yeah, speed of Dell's service in the UK is indeed pretty nice, can't say anything about them. Only positive experience.

If you used LM: your temps can be still high because you applied insufficient amount of paste, mirror like surface of LM with the nice reflection of objects in it is a good sign if it's already enough. Concerning flickering - I hope you haven't shorted anything with LM around GPU or on the MB.

 

Likely warped heatsink. What version do you have I.e Sunon or cci. Possible motherboard issue with the cpu. What temps are you getting with what cpu and gpu do you have? I’d have another go - that way it will allow you to check the cables at the back. I wouldn’t have used liquid metal though (if that’s what you used).

 

Uh-oh... I did use LM... is it dead...? I'll have to speak to Dell...

 

No, it’s clealry still working - possible loose cable at the back...
did you not contact dell before you repasted regards the temps? They usually ask you to send a video or screen print or they remote in.

 

I bought from privately - and am having a struggle changing the warranty.... though I've not tried too hard as I was confident I could do the repaste job but... Is there a monitor cable that connects to the motherboard? I'll have a closer look at that...

 

Yes, it’s 1 of the 4 cables you unplug at the back if I recall correctly (in between the fan vents) ..
assuming it’s still under warranty from the service tag, if the owner hasn’t done the transfer yet, you can call dell, but they will need you to confirm his or hers details to honour the warranty.

 

checked the cables at the back, I thought one of them was a bit loose. so I put it back in but the flicker is still there, albeit better...

 

Unless...
You repaste with LM at least or with kyronaut if you're extremely good at balancing the heatsink

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Depends where you are in the world? several forum users offer it

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Why 450 or am I missing something?

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Because you didn't do it right I suspect? Repasting if done properly will always be an improvement from factory even if you use cheap ****ty paste like they do.

Some people seem to think it's a 5-10 minute job. I spent a week on my last one for someone on the forum here, there's so much to do if you do it properly and you don't want to rush it, that's how accidents happen...

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I had screen flickering as a symptom of poor VRM contact with the heatsink, I suspect it's just that... Are you running the OC BIOS? Which CPU and GPU do you have?

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@Pete Light can you point me to someone that can do a repad and repaste and a PCH mod on my Alienware 17R4 7820K Gtx 1080, i tried to contact @iunlock. But it seems he fell of the face of the earth. Im located in Nashville TN USA.

 

London, UK mate...

Well... I tried a test squirt before applying it to the chips... and well... must have been some trapped air and it came spewing out so a vast majority had gone. I thought I had used enough on the chips though, perhaps not (I had a 1g Conductonaut) I spent a while doing it though...

6820HK + GTX 1080 all at stock. I'd like to OC but not at the moment given the temps at stock.. Btw I have noted there is no flicker when the Laptop is used on a monitor out...

 

The price list is in several steps. But Yeah, about there

Not the first time Dell's underpaid/low paid outsourced home tech team use screwdrivers for something as easy as a repaste. Some even prefer 10 inches variants of already mentioned tool.

But yes, best fix it yourself Services as some do is not cheap. And Dell's on site tech support team ain't much better option(Free but not nice when they make it worse than before you asked for support). Missing screws, scratches here and there, machines who don't boot as they did before they touched the computer etc.

 

Yes, It was a rollercoaster haha explaining my time lost and "frustration" , the fact that I reported both systems in the 30day window after reception and multiple dell failed services gave me the leverage to return my system.

 

I'm waiting next series...I figured if it's almost impossible to get issue free Laptop why bother...

 

i just bought me a new R4 with the 7700hq and gtx1070. i got the 1440p 120hz screen and so far i really like it better then my R3 with the 4k screen i bought last year. I did a repaste on it straight from the box and the factory paste was just like in the pictures i seen here. I dont really care for the tron lights going down the side of the screen though. I like them better on my R3, to bad i can switch lids out, or move the lights. Other then that its a great performing maching, much better then my older one with the 970.

 

LOL ... I don't like the lights either ... but you know you can turn them all off, right? I turned all of the lights off on my AW17. I spend a lot of time using my machine in public and the "tron lights" just don't work for that.

 

No one cares about the OC (but there is a chance it'll have better support for Alienware device specific tolerances etc. as it's straight from AW), I'm really sad we won't be getting the new AlienFX UI, the current one is a horrible UI from 2008, you can't even do a decent rainbow (which I know is possible on this LED hardware because it can cycle through lighting at a good speed, it's just bad coding.) Other than that I hate opening Control Center because of how ugly it is. So yeah pretty jealous, hopefully it comes out on this regardless.

 

yes i know you can turn off all the lights.

 

So, we all post the horror stories about Alienware and fell and technicians, I want to post a positive review.

So a couple days ago I had mentioned that my 17r4 has all the glitchy boxes on the screen and found out the gpu was fried. well I had the shipping label from Dell to return it. I ended up not, due to the screen being perfect for me. No light bleed no banding just nice. I know that’s more rare than getting a motherboard that’s perfect. Well I called dell canceled the return and had dell troubleshoot the problem just to tell me what I already knew. That was the worst of the experience and I know they have to go through the steps. They shipped out a refurb board to the area, I could not convince them to let me do it.

So tonight I had a tech come out to replace the motherboard, I had horrible experiences in the past before. This guy was really awesome an older gentleman, he knew what he was doing, the only struggle was to take the back part off. I ended up helping on that it was stuck on tight. I asked if I could use kryonaught to repaste and he had no problem with it. He got it all taken apart and put back together in about 45 minutes. So far the laptop went from 75c plying wow at max settings down to 62ish, the max difference in cores is around 2c. So far so good I have been running the game for about 20 minutes no hiccups at all.

Top it all off, del sent a windows key for the new motherboard but the old one is still registered. He let me keep it and told me to use it on another system.

 

Any way of stopping them turning on every tine you turn on the PC?
I prefer no lights but they still light up while command center loads... bit annoying

 

Good for you and congratulations!

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Open the back cover and unplug them and just tape them against the internal structure. They are easily accessable so no further dismantling is required

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So my experience with Dell's On-Site service (contracted by Worldwide TechServices)...
So my issues were cosmetic damage that was there when I opened the machine, a blue dot on the display, overheating, and battery drain even when plugged in. First guy replaced the battery and screen, but the distance between the bezel and the screen was... less than acceptable. He also messed up the left bottom tron, causing it to be blue when turned off and pink when blue in AlienFX. He didn't even have the necessary items to fix the other issues, what a joke. So, after much arguing and shouting over email with Dell they finally got another guy who retaped the display, repasted CPU/GPU, and fixed the LEDs. I originally e-mailed Dell on NOVEMBER 14th, bringing Dell's time to get this fixed to 59 Days! I envy the guy above who got everything fixed easily.

 

Sorry you had a bad experience, the one before that the dude had the whiskey shakes, he broke my WiFi connections on the card, he broke the connector for the track pad, he cracked the plastic frame on the laptop, he ripped a Tron light and after replacing the keyboard, I watched him put only 5 of the 7 heat sink screws in, coud not figure out how to get everything back in and had a few screws left over after putting g it back in. Once he had it all smashed together he tried to boot the laptop... didn’t boot at all. Called Dell told them the motherboard was broke and he needed a new one and left my house with my laptop in pieces. I called dell and after 30 minutes of *****ing a had a new laptop on the way...lol

 

Lol half of them at least are monkeys, fortunately the guy in our area is very good so I've actually let him work on my XPS a couple of times rather than just give me the parts. No one works on my Alienware though but me

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Now we got full non horror story with Dell, it turns out just another one HORROR STORY with happy end

 

Lol there is always horror stories, we just have to cherish be few fairy tales we get.

 

Hey all, hope everyone is having a great new year...I've been here, always reading, but I've been traveling for the holiday's. Busy time of the year for sure.

I've been tuning my system (17R4) to try and get it to stick at 4.8GHz, so that's what I've been up to along with working the magic on other systems... fun stuff.

 

Glad you had a good experience. I’ve also had many positive experiences with dell.

Much rather dell fix it, the next day, given I’ve already paid a sizeable amount of money, then pay for someone else to do it. And besides, if the real issue is a faulty cpu re overheating, paying someone else to repaste won’t fix the issue anyway, or at best hide the issue for a while.
I’d rather people use their included warrantys so dell feel the pain - might prompt them to take action quicker to fix the issue (new revision)

 

I agree with you except for the "if the real issue is a faulty cpu re overheating"? What evidence do you have to support that?

I've never seen a case posted from anyone which has been proven to be the chip and cannot be resolved but correctly cooling it, I suspect this is exceptionally rare or even impossible.

Dell QC on the parts are very good and on the assembly, errr, as bad at l as the others at least I guess!

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DEAD CPU Not from current AW line, but you can *see* the pict.

 

Not all cpus are made the same, as you know, what I meant was if there is a fault with the motherboard itself (evidence I have for that is alienware have purged all Au00 motherboards from uk refurb stock) these are earlier versions of the 7820hk due to thermal and stuttering issues on some of the old mobos. No point trying to repaste these, as it’s just hiding the real issue. Besides some cpus will handle heat better than others just like they do with undervolting. My message is simple, don’t pay others to fix dells problem, let dell fix it for free or send it back.

 

Fair enough but obviously I guess since they've pulled them there's no chance of these actually ending up in someone's hands anymore.

It would be nice if all manufacturers could assemble laptops properly before selling them! But they're all just as bad as each other on that front!

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Hi guys, Im using an Dec 2016 AW17R4, my Raid5 USB 3.0 enclosure randomly disconnects and reconnects when plugged in to any compatible ports with my laptop, that includes the 2 TypeA port, 1 TypeC port, and the thunderbolt port located behind (with TypeA to TypeC converter). The dropouts commonly happens during heavy write/read.
Tried plugging in the enclosure to my desktop and 2 other laptops using TypeA USB3.0 ports, no issue with dropouts at all.
I also noticed that this issue only occur when im using USB3.0, tried connecting the enclosure to AW17R4 using USB2.0 extension, turns out that it works perfectly fine.
Im using the latest drivers from dell/alienware website
My chipset driver is 10.1.1.38 A05
Any1 experiences similar issue?
My enclosure is Mediasonic Proraid HFR2-SU3S2 BTW

 

This has been going on for as long as I've had this machine (Oct) and it's been extremely annoying. Some time after I'm using my computer normally, I'll go to click something on my taskbar and it won't do anything except show the loading circle. I then minimize what program I'm on and the desktop has turned completely black with the open programs in a weird non-metro UI in the bottom left minimized. I can alt-tab and get back to them in the weird Windows 95-esque UI. Ctrl-alt-delete doesn't do anything, I have to push the Alien to force shutoff everytime. Every driver is the latest.

 

when i had random usb disconnects, it was due to the usb selective power save in the Alienware Fusion settings, have you disabled that yet? also might be worth setting the HDD turn off time to 0 instead of the 20mins it usually is by default

 

Re install clean version of Windows

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so after weeks of trying to find that elusive LG panel people were talking about, i finally managed to get my hands on one, i had a chi mei originally, but the colors were blah to say the least and overclocking was impossible, it freaked out at 61hz. so i took off the bezel and swapped out the display, and voila, amazing colors, and a very cool 100hz refresh rate that my gtx 1070 can take advantage of. heres a photo of the back of the panel, for those who are looking for specific model numbers and part numbers.



i ran the ufo test and it seems theres no skipped frames, even at 100hz


only issue i had was with reattaching the bezel, not sure if it was my unit in particular, but there were two very small clips on either side of the webcam on the lid itself, which snapped, but i remedied this by putting tape all along the top edge of bezel, instead of just in the centre like there was originally, heres a pic showing where the clips are



and a pic of the tape


also, since i had to unplug the power to swap out the screen, i decided to add a heatsink to my NVMe SSD (was hitting 98c on the controller when transferring a large amount of data).




not the most elegant solution i know, but it dropped the temps down to 70c on the memory controller. Sorry for the long post, just thought id share my little DIY projects

 

Which is your SSD? Is it 960 series?

 

So I have been trying to play assassin creeds origins, I see people with the 1070 saying they are hitting over 60fps with everything maxed out. I have the 1080 in mine and I struggle to hit 60fps is this normal? I have the 1440p screen I dropped everything down to high and get mid 50s.

 

Are they running a 1070 and 1080p panel or 1440p? That can make a sizeable difference in performance. Are you throttling? What temps are you running?

 

yeah samsung evo 960

 

1440p and not throttling. I am in the low 70s, I dropped it down to 1080p and frame rate did not improve. here is a 3d mark of the laptop.

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/24707786?

 

The Physics score is all too low for stock 3.5GHz clock speed.

 

What would cause the physics score to be low?

 

Bloatware, AV in background and or temp throttling with stock clocks. + as well wrong power limits if you run overclocked. In short, can be different reasons.

 

It’s a fresh install I’m staying constant at 70-75c 1-2 c difference, no apps running, no antivirus installed on a clean install.

 

I expect you have 2 ram sticks. How is CINEBENCH R15 scores?

 

Lol it’s one, I have an extra 8gb would that benefit or will a 16 and a 8 cause a problem?