*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Wait do we know for certain the heatsink is different on 1080gtx models? I don't know why we would get a new heatsink on the CPU for a slightly different GPU. It would make sense if it was an extreme CPU that was vastly different than the ones that are listed?

 

I have gsync set to windowed and full screen in the control panel

 

There was a tweet someone left around here from alienware saying there was going to be a 4th heatpipe on the 1080 models. So i guessing there just going to fill in the gap. Maybe if were lucky it will put more pressure on the top of the cpu. Im getting mine between the 1st and 6th and plan on opening it up to see if anything is different.

 

The heatsink is shared so if you get a new one for the GPU the CPU also gets it.

Umar said on twitter last week that it does have a different heatsink and he will see if he can take pics and post them.

 

I believe it's just the heatsink. In Frank Azor's AMA he answered that the GTX 1080 heatsink will be larger because it's a ~180W part as opposed to the GTX 1070's ~120W. Yeah, they have em all listed the same weight; I'm sure there will be a slight variance.

 

Al right guys, just wanted to let you know, this last fiasco of Alienware with heat issues and and screen issues, actually made me step off from laptops. I will go back to desktops. I missed the fact that I can choose every single piece of hardware myself. unfortunately at the price of losing the portability, which I actually decided to sacrifice.

Sad decision for me, but at least I'm sure I won't regret it, once my system arrives.

 

I have an LG monitor. I think it is 60hz with no gsync. How do I check?

 

You shouldnt be experiencing bad framerates, what kind of fps on what games? You can try to go to the nvidia control panel and turn your power management mode to adaptive or prefer maximum performance. What temperatures are you getting while gaming, download open hardware monitor and let us know your maximum temps while gaming both on the cpu cores and the gpu cores.

 

I ordered a 17 with gtx 1080 and the 6820k Wednesday. Dell is showing the laptop as completed and I chose the slightly faster shipping. Oh. Also got the 1440p monitor.

I'm in San Antonio and I believe these are manufactured at the Dell plant outside Austin, TX (IIRC). That's only 86 miles to my door step. So I may have mine in hand Tuesday if the stars align.

I'm a tinkerer so the 1st thing I'll do after booting it up and making sure it works is to take the thing apart a bit. I can snap some shots of the heat sink. May run a full Aida64 stress test with Unigine and Firestrike testing to note temps and then check paste, pads and other thermal contact areas afterwards in the teardown.

 

Yeah I will do that very soon. I only tried the driver it had preinstalled and the latest that I download from nvidia. I can confirm now that if i run the game in window borderless I dont have the fps drop problem but I think g-sync is not working with borderless window. So its something to g-sync related and I hope is a software problem, not hardware.


Offtopic question: Has anyone used the hidevolution.com ? I want to buy another alienware 17 with the GTX1080 for my brother and they have a very good price with custom build to order, also they are not charging taxes for NY but they say it will take 3 to 4 weeks to arrive. Anyone know if it will really take so long?

 

Dell's HQ is outside Austin (in Round Rock) but manufacturing is all done in China, and moreover by a third party afaik. So a little more than 86 miles Still, hope you get it soon!

 

Ah....Hmm.Seems like the last couple Dell boxes that I had ordered (for other work reasons not personal) had a send off point from Austin area. Last I had looked I thought the main facility was to the East of Austin closer to the COTA track. Need to update myself lol. Could be the main manufacturing is done in China (mainboards, daughterboards etc...definitely), but final assembly was stateside? Figure at that stage it's damn near just bolting parts together. I do understand their engineering department is definitely in the Austin area.

Lets see...
1.) Screen assembly will most likely be a complete unit to include antenna's for wifi. So bolting/screwing screen into main chassis for options sake. Route wires and connect cables for screen. Can see this as being a stateside assembly of major end component work. Nothing major from a manufacturing point, but a major 1/3 of the laptop as a whole and a part that can change due to custom specifications.

2.) Main Chassis: Since the mainboard has the BGA CPU and GPU integrated into the mainboard...that's a solid one piece. Could be manufactured as a whole in China and shipped to include Heatsink assembly, fans, keyboard, speakers,...etc. That's like most of the other 2/3 of the computer.

3.) WiFi, RAM, SSD/HDD seem to be the last components. Super simple to install or upgrade/customize these options.

Ok...Thinking the main assembly is finished up in the Austin area for Dell/Alienware. Basically a Tech looks at the build sheet, adds the RAM, HDD/SSD, WiFi card and screen. Plug and play mostly at this stage. Figure 5-10 min assembly work. Then once system is assembled, they would do a POST and Dell Diagnostic run to ensure the hardware passes their in-house testing. OS is cloned onto SSD before hand. Seen that process 1st hand. Pretty cool.

So yeah...if the laptop was packaged up already and ready to just ship, I can see it making it out the door Monday early. Slow-boat UPS ground would have it to the receiving yard in Leon Valley tomorrow. Hmmm.....I have gone to the main Distro depot for UPS before to get a part I needed ASAP. Might try to do that if I can.

 

...
LMFAO

 

Anyone know if the FHD screen has a 120hz or 60hz display?

 

60 hz

 

The "problem" heatplate is the CPU heatplate, not the GPU heatplate

 

The CPU heatplate is unique to the CPU, it's the heatpipe's that are shared, so if there is another heatpipe that spans both the CPU and GPU heatplates, it might help - or it might hurt, the 1080 might dump more heat into/across the CPU, such is the nature of sharing heatpipe's across CPU / GPU

 

They build everything in China and then ship it from there to a regional depot in the US. You will start seeing tracking info from that point. For me it ships from TN, others get them from CA but it's totally possible they have a depot in TX.

What sucks is that mine was "build complete" for 5 days before being shipped.

 

60 but easily overclockable it would seem and you get to keep optimus working too....

 

Some are and some aren't. Mine isn't. Mine can't go past 62Hz.

 

I find this really odd. My previous Alienware 17 R4 was delivered to me in 8 days so has many others that have received theirs recently. If they are built in China first then how in heck are they able get them in our hands so quickly especially when they are shipping out of Texas was where my came from. Does that make any sense? The building process in China will already take a few days let alone it has to go across the Atlantic to their Headquarters in Texas and the time it takes them to process and the time added during the shipping to us all in 8 days seems a little farfetched.

 

international deliveries can happen in a day, if their manufacturing process is quick (would explain the build problems) then i dont see why it would farfetched

plus its black friday/cyber monday they would of been prepared to mass produce/ship quickly to get the most sales they can

 

Shipping times would be HORRIBLE if literally every machine was custom built to order. What would be logical (yes, i am guessing, but not totally off the cuff), is having the common configurations pre-built and ready in a warehouse there in texas; people who order pre-configured models would be ready to ship right away, with custom models needing modifications done (either there, or back in manufacturing in china). It would be straightforward to ship base units here, where local assemblers configure the final configurations (wi-fi, storage, ram, OS)...

 

Makes sense. I betcha that they are all prebuilts already shipped from China hence only a few configurations are available. The customizing part is the ram, storage, software, and accessories that are done in the US before shipping like you've mentioned.

 

There is some assembly and packaging state side as well.

 

Streamlined 24/7 manufacturing plus airplanes. I'd love for my laptop to be made stateside but I know it's not the case.

 

Well I ordered a pretty basic config on 11/21. 6820, 1440p screen, 16 gig ram, standard 128ssd+1 terabyte HHD and 1080gtx. Deliver was estimated 11/23-11/30 and tomorrow is 11/28. They threw in next day shipping so I am hoping it gets shipped out tomorrow or I will call and see if there is a delay. I inquierd to my rep and he stated that it was in production as of last week. I hope I don't end up having a long waiting game. I have so many alienware products I remember when you played the waiting game through about 8 stages and the average delivery time took at least a month. Then again, quality was emphasized, orders came with "goodies" and custom treats based on your forums posts and personality. Those small touches are greatly missed by me and I'm sure a few other "old school" AW gamers.

 

So how did you order your 17 with the 1080gtx and those other options? I have been only able to find one configuration offering the 1080gtx, and that comes with the 6820/32gb ram/512ssd w/1tb and 1440 screen. Pretty much their maxed out system with the price to go with it. I have yet to find the link to where you can totally customize it. Only can find the links with the preconfigs with limited customizing and only a 1060 or 1070 graphics card.
Sly n5gqb

 

It was available last week to order a more basic setup. I don't need 32gig ram and the 512ssd as I already have one if I want to replace it with that.

 

What region are you in? USA? Strange cuz a bunch of us ordered literally the moment it was available.

 

What are the dimensions of this laptop? is this correct (the 13 had wrong numbers on their page...)? Height: 29.9mm (1.181 inches) | Width: 424mm (16.7 inches) | Depth: 332mm (13.1 inches) | Average Weight: 4.42 kg (9.74 lbs) 2

 

I saw it available too for the last 3 configurations until Dell quickly pulled it and made it only available for last configuration. I'm here in the US.

 

I saw the same thing too.

 

Are there possibilities for GPU upgrades? Excuse if commented earlier.

Edit: just seen a teardown vid. Shame alienware have stopped supporting MXM GPUs. I just fixed my m17x R3 by replacing the broken graphics card. Guess these DIY days have gone for the new alienware laptops.

 

That's what the website has, and that's what a sales rep told me. I'm not exactly clear on this, because depth is the height of the computer, but it does not include the back protrusion on the new model. So, when you put a laptop in a bag, the "width" is actually the length (of 16.7 inches), while the "depth" is the width (13.1 inches), as a laptop goes in portrait style. The problem is that this "depth" (width when packing in a backpack) is only the length of the screen + the thickness (1.18 inches). It's not fully representative of the backward protrusion. So when picking a laptop bag, Idk how to take that into consideration.

Also, the 1080 chassis might be different? Not sure.

 

Nope. Everything is soldered to the motherboard. The only upgradeable components are the network card, the SSD's, RAM, and HDD.

 

I have the same problem on my AW17 and dell will change me the computer

 

Dimensions are correct, just measured.

 

Hey, can you tell me what's the "width" of the laptop, as if you were putting it portrait into a backpack? So, from the front of the laptop (where the speakers are) to the back (where the fan exhausts are). Also, did you get a backpack that could fit this beast?

 

I bought this bag and it works great with it. I also have my 15" Dell work laptop in it as well in the front compartment.

Bonvince 18.4" Laptop Backpack Fits Up To 18.4 Inch Gamer Laptops Backpack Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012IDOLU6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_08hpybYKXHS52

 

13.1 front to back, my everki titan fits it super tight, as well as my 18 inch vindicator 1.0. I bought the 18 inch vindicator because they are blowing them out because of the new vindicator 2.0 which is pretty much the same thing.

 

Would you recommend the Everki Titan? I just bought it for about $100 net.

 

Where did you get it for $100? I'm planning on getting that bag...

 

Ebags. Use the 30% signup discount, get's the price down to ~$125, then use the ebates 20% rebate and you get a further $25 off. Total should be around $100. Though, I thought ebates was supposed to apply the 20% cashback on the listed price (which is $200), instead of the discounted price (which was $125). Will be querying that with them.

 

Hello,

I had a few questions regarding my purchase and am curious what the members of this forum think. I have been following this thread prior to my order and even during the painful 2 week delivery process. Initially I was feeling pretty good about the purchase now so so. Here are the specs of my order:

NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1070 with 8GB GDDR5
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache,
Dynamically Overclocked up to 4.1GHz)
Windows 10 Pro (64bit) English
17.3 inch UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits
Display with Tobii IR Eye-tracking
16GB DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x8GB)
1TB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)
Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

I have had the laptop for about a week now. I haven't really done a ton with it, busy with work and the holiday. What would be some suggestions to test it out to see if I'm getting the ideal output of the rig? Also as far as the screen is concerned, was this a poor choice? Seems like most are not a fan of the UHD.

My Everki Beacon bag should arrive today. Any one have one they are using for this laptop?

I really wanted to hold out for the 1080, and now am debating if I should go that route with a different screen.

As far as the CPU is concerned, I don't see anywhere showing it running at 4.1ghz. How would I determine if that is the case or not?

Also anything I can do to see if this machine suffers from the thermal paste issue as well? Thanks for the help guys.

 

I received mine 5 days ago (same specs but 256go ssd and 2400mhz ram). At first, my CPU wasn't running 4.1ghz, I need to configure it in bios (overclock level 3) to reach 4.1.

The keybord I awesome compared to my old M17x. And the UHD screen i very good to me.

 

Can anyone recommend a good laptop cooler? Mines supposed to be here on friday, and ive been looking on amazon the past few hours but havent found anything good yet. It seems like there are alot more options for 15 in laptops.

Also anyone use there laptop with one of those couch tables? Ive been looking into them since i like to lay back in my chair and play but dont really want to keep it on my lap. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Altra-Jacob-...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FF204H5GWNAMEPDMYM4N But more sturdy, according to the reviews that one is pretty cheaply made and i doubt it will support a 10lb laptop if its having problems supporting 3-5lb ones.

 

what thermals do you get at 4.1ghz 100% utilize?

 

I have a question. I just bought an AW17 R4 with the FHD ips panel. But I checked hwinfo, and it reported the display being a AUO b173hw01 v0, which is supposedly a TN panel, manufactured 01/2015. Is it possible they shoved a TN panel on the laptop, or is HWINFO bugging out.

 

Heads up for AW17 1080gtx buyers and future buyers. The website no longer offers the 1080gtx atm and when I checked my order status, the order is no longer there. I made a tweet about it. If they don't want my money, then oh well....

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