*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Very, very interested in your 'safe' CPU solution! Mine should be here by/on Thursday.

 

Great stuff. I think us early adopters pretty much all have the same configuration for the most part.

Looks great! There's a lot of exciting things to come so stay tuned. I'll be diving into this the moment it lands....

 

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Yeah man, excited to hear about it! My 17r4 came in the mail last week, been playing with it a bit. I've got a dang fine stable undervolt of -175mv at 3.6ghz, think this one is a silicon lottery winner, but I'm definitely noticing the core differential coming into play. Haven't reached much above 82c, but even still the differential is close to 20c at times. It's annoying because I can tell the cooling solution is fantastic -- the cooler two cores max at ~55c stably with 100% CPU utilization at 3.6ghz, but the other two are ranging between 60-80c and fluctuating wildly. The machine is great, and I'm going to be doing a repaste soon, so yes yes yes PLEASE with the heatsink solution!

 

I'm not planning on undervolting it if anything I want to reach the 4.1Ghz what I'm doing is a repaste with Thermal Grizzly

 

It's stock, but i don't do a lot of benchmark, and now I'm waiting for dell to change it.

 

How did u get this config and how much did u pay.? They are not letting me customise my config

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

I live in Malta so we cant order from the Dell website we can order only through the Dell distributor, this configuration cost me €4000 but I had no choice since I had €3100 credit note with the company since I had 2 17 R3's which came as a DOA I chose to wait for the next model.

 

4000 euros!!! Damn that is a lot!!!

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Yeah I know in Malta everything is expensive that config was on the irish site for about €2660 with one year warranty. The plus side for me is that they give me 3 years parts and labour warranty and I have the option to add more. The down side is that the laptop takes 3 to 4 weeks to arrive as they do not stock them.

 

In France :
I7 6820HK
GTX1080
16Go 2667mhz
SSD 512 + 1Tb 7200 rpm
Killer 1535
QHD 120hz G-Sync
3 year warranty

3662€ tva include (3 898$)

French price suxx!!!!

Ok iunlock... I agree with you but i don't know how to repast with Grizzly metal liquid. I am not a pro... It will be my first time and if i crash the repast and burn cpu or gpu ?
I think that for the price Dell must sell perfect laptop for cpu/gpu heatsink...
It's my opinion...

So i will buy this laptop because is too beautiful and classy but...

 

I've configure the same for 2 980,61 € ... (-350€ + -10% code dell).

 

Does anyone else who ordered on the 21st have a tracking number yet? My unit is estimated to be here by Dec. 1 buuut is just in confirmed status on the site.

 

No. The only update I've seen on the Dell site is Confirmed with note under the Order Number as :Your custom-built item is complete. So still waiting to see when the item will ship. Supposedly there's a large overseas shipment due for delivery any day now to the Dell distribution centers. Once that arrives, they'll most likely start updating the status showing where we are with Shipping.

BTW....anyone wanting to upgrade or add more M.2 storage: there's some REALLY good deals on WOOT for the Samsung 950 Pro 256 and 512. Scoll to the bottom.

http://computers.woot.com/plus/storage

They are Refurbished items but for something like the SSD from Samsung it was most likely a firmware that bricked the drive originally and they had to manually unlock it again using the board probe points and forcing a very low level reset and updating of micro-code instructions. Something Even a very skilled Engineer or IT technician can't do-due to needing specific custom hardware and software. And they would be tested to verify the fix...aka tested MORE thoroughly than new production runs. It's the nature of Manufacturing/refurbishment.

So 256GB 950 Pro is $123+S/H and the 512GB 950 Pro is $203+ S/H. The other SSD on the page aren't really that great of a deal. Almost standard pricing from Amazon or Newegg.

I ordered my 950 Pro on Thursday 11/24 and received it yesterday. Total price was $225.15. $202.99 Drive, $5 Shipping, $17.16 for Tax.

It works like a champ in my Desktop X99 right now. Doing Synthetic stress tests and checking out thermals. There is an official Alienware Services video on YouTube showing a copper heatsink pad? strip? plate? Not sure what to call it, but it's a copper heatsink that goes on top of the M.2 drive stock. The Alienware Tech on the youtube video said Ok, in case you do not have the copper plates. You can order those with Tech Support or to our e-mail [email protected]

 

I have the same delivery date, but i ordered on the 24th. I messaged dell asking them if they had an clue what was up with it and they told me mine its still in production (even though it says custom order complete on my order page). They told me they have my estimated date as the 6th, so ive kind of given up on it showing up on the 1st now.

 

Well it would cost us same too in Dubai they are selling the 17 with 980M for 4000$ right now.

 

Alright boys not good news . Those who are still waiting before 12/1 delivery can stop waiting unless you were borned under a shooting star and got lucky. My Rep just informed me that we won't be getting ours on time. If your order status hasn't change yet it will change soon to 12/5 delivery because mine just did. Take a break and enjoy the weather .

 

Same. A bit disappointed, but just gives me more time to scheme and stare at my liquid metal. And look for reviews of units with 1080's. Though I doubt any manufacturer has the build quality to sway me.

 

Hi,

where can i activate the XMP-Profil in the BIOS? I use the 32GB G.Skill ddr4 3000mhz, kit but i don´t find the XMP Menue in the BIOS.
Can I select XMP-Profile from Windows?

 

Mine just gives a range of 12/1 to 12/5 which probably means 12/5.

 

Still showing 11/28 thru 12/2 on my end. Eh..fingers crossed MAYBE by Friday?

I did just set up the text message notification. Just realized I can do that.

 

Again, my sneaking suspicion is that they didn't have any 1080s in to even begin to fulfill the orders. Not one person on here has gotten it from the US so they probably are just getting the cards in. Hopefully they truly are in now and we get these machines pushed out.

And you are right. I don't agree with iunlock on this. I'm a long-time gaming enthusiast, car enthusiast and watch enthusiast. Some things I know more about than others. I don't think everyone who wants to buy a corvette needs to know how to wrench a car. Some people want it for the looks, performance, a sense of accomplishment, and a variety of other reasons. I don't expect every Omega watch owner to understand Omega's rich history with NASA or the difference between the 861 movement of the original Moon Watch to the 1861 movement in today's pieces. Just as I don't expect every Alienware owner how to wrench their own PC. Some people are just naturally handier than other people.

I will agree that if one wants to get into overclocking and benchmarking but is unwilling to learn how to work through the motherboard then that is not a good idea. But for an everyday user that prefers or wants to get into PC gaming, there is absolutely NO reason a 2-4K computer doesn't come working from the factory to 'spec.' There's no excuse for it.

Now if you are afraid you will botch your CPU job I can think of two ideas. The first one is go to a specialty computer store and pay them to paste the CPU. You may want to buy the best thermal compound and supply them with it. They likely will just go to youtube and watch a breakdown of the 17. From what I have quickly educated myself on is that it's a pretty easily accessible machine; just not upgradeable. The second idea is for you to do it. Watch some videos on it. You WON'T "Burn" the CPU as you say. You just want to make sure you get the old thermal paste off completely and then "dab" a small circular amount in the center of the CPU. As you reconnect the heatsink to the CPU it will evenly distribute the paste and then running the computer for awhile will allow the paste to set so your temps will continue to lower after you turn the computer on. But don't be down on yourself because you are getting a computer and don't know how to upgrade; most people don't know how. It's pretty easy. And you are absolutely correct in that the computer should work properly from the factory.

 

In that case I would recommend repasting with:

Grizzly Kyronaut

or

Gelid Extreme

With those you really can't mess it up... also yes, this is a beautiful laptop and the best built too. Despite the short comings of the single arm fiasco haha...which can be fixed...so if you're willing to put in a little work then it's worth it. Shame on Dell.

When did I ever say that I find Dell's circus stunt acceptable? You might want to back track and read my posts. I am among those in the front of the battle line to shoot Dell down for their stupidity, are you kidding me?

Yes, it is absolutely unacceptable for one to receive a borked machine that costs thousands of dollars. For the record...

I get what you're saying about the watch and car analogy, but when it comes to gaming laptops you can't put it up against the same standards. Pascal, Skylake, more power...all equals more heat and unfortunately, it is just the nature of the beast. Now that doesn't excuse Dell and other OEM's for their mistakes, but reality is reality. Therefore...

If one does not want to get down and dirty under the hood, then don't buy it. It is not for you. - There are no surprises here.....we all know these things need work, so to each his own.

 

You are contradicting yourself. You are saying that you don't find this "circus stunt acceptable" and that you are at the front of the battle regarding it. Yet you later say, "more power, more heat and unfortunately that is the nature of the beast....If you don't want to get down and dirty under the hood then don't buy it, it's not for you." So you ARE excusing their mistakes by basically promoting anyone who isn't going to paste their CPU to fix Dell's problem to not buy it.

I on the other hand am advocating that Dell be responsible for fixing a defective product. The original Alienware m15x had design flaws and I TRULY was on the frontline of the battle against them and rallying people to complain and have Dell fix the problem. There was a recall and fix for the Alienware 15 that came out that fixed the problem and then they redesigned the chassis so that the problems couldn't replicate going forward.

It's NOT the nature of the beast that "more power, more heat is the nature of the beast." Sorry, it's not. It just requires more effective cooling. My Alienware 18 has 2 880m SLI which are very power hungry cards (206watts) and a 4900mq which is also very power hungry at stock. I run every card overclocked on a fixed bios. My temps are fine. The system is rock solid.

And yes my analogies are just as applicable. If Rolex comes out with a new complication but it requires owners to accept a +/- of 6 seconds a day instead of the SCOC specifications it would never sell. Any new complication or advancement better still come at the same quality standards that are set. The benefit of the Pascal chips, to my knowledge, was the ROI in graphics power to power draw. There's no reason to not have sufficient cooling and unless DELL wants to to take a Niche market and shrink it by 90% then they better fix it. If you think more than 10% of alienware notebook buyers can actually repaste a GPU then you are sadly mistaken. If you think that even 70% even register and read these forums and know about heat issues to begin with you would be sadly mistaken. Therefore the majority of current owners are using their systems with the CPUs slowly frying everything and they likely have no clue as they aren't running their monitoring software. All said I was I disagreed with you. That's it! I disagree with your logic.

 

A bit disappointing? Would rather say hideous low score vs. others you can see below from NotebookCheck's reviews

 

Either way how you see it: you have to get your hands dirty to get this one working as intended. Either that or RMA it.

There is absolutely no brand out there which delivers their gaming rigs, which works as intended, out of da box! At least a repaste is mandatory, at worst some bending action or delidding stuff or lapping work or writing a new Bios, etc etc.

So this one can be a good rig, despite its obvious designflaws, but you have to deal with these first. There is no other workaround....

 

I want to bring our attention to Aorus X7 DT V6 and MSI GT73VR - both of them have excellent heat management + even something AW never heard of... Fan Control! Also almost entire Asus line seems ok out of the box. I'd go as far as to say that if something doesn't work out of the box then return it and buy yourself a Clevo desktop replacement. Your time and skill repasting all the stuff is much better spent there.

I'm very sorry your expectations are set so low that you wanna spend 2k $ and then expect to waste time and energy to get it to work properly.

Having said that if somebody really loves the sexy side lights of the new AW line then by all means. Tinker with it and it will be fine.

 

He probably ran it with gsync on that covers for the 2k lost.

 

Ha ha, well said! But I for my taste would tinker (repasting, delidding, etc.) anyways to get the most out of ma rig AND I don't trust the pasting jobs of da companies.

A system, nevertheless if it runs okay-ish, runs so much better and smoother after tinkering with it! Imho it's worth every penny and second spent to pimper your rig with high performance pastes and thermal pads as well as a bit of luv spending on heatsinks!

 

Now THAT'S something to agree on

 

Err umm, you must be new to enthusiast notebook gaming then eh? I have had good and bad notebooks "out da box" as you would say. Working as intended for me does indeed include some repasting but that is mostly due to enthusiast level overclocking of both the CPU and GPUs. I don't overclock ram. However even Alienware has had notebooks that didn't need repasting out of the box to work within spec. My Alienware m17xR2 was probably the best overall gaming notebook I have had. Perfect user control of all options, an amazing RGB screen, and excellent thermal control. My Alienware 18xR1 and especially Rx2 were outstanding as is my Alienware 18. Clevo/Sager lines have a history of being just fine with desktop grade CPU/GPU combinations and i have heard good things from the MSI camp. Keep drinking that AW koolaid though bro! You are making them chuckle as each one bashing their overheating potato is helping prevent forcing their hand at putting out solid products from the factory.

 

Speaking of repasting ...

I'm going to be doing my AW17 in the next couple weeks; I happen to have a crap ton of those 15x15 copper shims in my parts box so I'm going to try that copper shim hack on the CPU side of the heat sink like I red somewhere that somebody else did with great success. Seems he evened out the pressure a great deal by adding the shim and even with simply quality, non conductive paste, he dropped his CPU temps by many degrees ...

 

Can you run some more test like gaming benchmarks please?

Sent from my E6853 using Tapatalk

 

You're a sensitive one, right?

It's nice to see that all was good in the past. If you want to dwell in past thoughts so be it. And yeah I agree with you that it should be a manufacturers obligation to deliver their products without design flaws, but unfortunately that's not reality! Most threads here are full of complaints (overheating, crippled (v)Bioses, light bleeding, ****ty drivers, and so on) throughout all brands.

Of course the best way to deal with it is to RMA it, kicking them where it hurts the most. But in most cases tinkering solves these issues either. It's up to each his own how to deal with it. Nobody is forced to do something on the behalf of others.

And you might keep your kool aid for yourself.
I very much prefer educated discussion over blatantly ranting against other members.

 

So the 6820HK option is gone for 1060/1070 models and the 1080 has slipped to 25-29 days delivery in the US!

I assume this means they are out of parts? Will they honor the original delivery times for those of us who got 5-7 day estimates that are supposed to be delivered between tomorrow and Monday? Not feeling very optimistic since mine isn't even build complete yet...

 

Yeah I hope so. My rep hasn't responded to my emails and the online chat says they have been swamped with inquiries. I'm sure they got inundated with orders over the shopping holiday and I'm thinking they didn't expect so many 1080 orders? I have usually stuck with AW despite their issues and am prepared to do some serious benching, spending phone time with online chat documenting my systems temps and whatnot, and doing my own repasting to get my system to where I want it. I imagine the wait shouldn't be too long but a realistic idea of a wait time for the early orders would be nice to know. It seems like there was a strong group of people that ordered the first day it was available and a lot of orders this past week and all the delivery times were pretty close together. So I am thinking we ALL are going to be pushed back a fair amount.

Back in the old Alienware days it was called "playing the phase game" to see what phase you were in as we all knew the breakdown of wait times based on around 9 phases. The neat part was AW was very integrated on certain forums and they would customize each box with your own benchmarks and for more known forum members, sometimes some extra goodies were included. It was definitely worth the wait. Now it's a lot more mainstream and the benefit has been greatly reduced wait times at least.

 

I remember things being better when I bought my m14x years ago. The website was much more detailed as far as order status was concerned and you could really track the progress. Now? Not so much.

 

Does anyone else here use their laptop in dedicated graphics mode? I have noticed that while the laptop display (and an external mDP display) are correctly driven by the Nvidia card, the HD530 is still visible in the control panel.

I could have sworn that when I was at Best Buy the other day looking at the QHD GSync display model, I checked the device manager and the HD530 was not even present. I am using the latest bios.

 

I talked to chat about it and i think it all depends on when you ordered. I ordered my 1080 on the 24th. I message dell last night since i had a estimated date as December 1st, and they told me that none of the orders have shipped since there waiting on a batch of 1080's which is supposed to arrive on the 2nd. Once it does mine is supposed to be shipped and should arrive to me on the 6th. So if you have a 1080 on order and it doesnt ship by the 2nd or 3rd then i would start being worried about it being really delayed.

Im worried myself about the parts situation. Sounds like they dont even have any 1080s, yet there still taking orders on them. If for some reason this thing comes dead or with a major problem im wondering if they even have enough for a replacement. Im really hoping mine arrives in one piece because im not looking to wait another month for a new one while there sending out back orders. Its kind of messed up there selling laptops they dont have.

 

Are you SURE that you have the QHD? There have been posts on this thread that people got the wrong screen...

 

My order status says my custom build is complete, but my estimated date still got pushed back from the 1st to the 5th.

 

Be cool to see how you get on mate, what thicknes ?
can you link to anyone with success ? I've only managed to find people warning about damaging the cpu.
Undervolting has given me good temps and better performance as well.

 

Oh, this is on a FHD non-GSync model. The QHD was a display model in Best Buy I had looked at while traveling over the weekend. Unfortunately the local Best Buy only carries the FHD model.

So, I found out why the Intel GPU is still present in the control panel. The Thunderbolt 3 video output (USB-C DisplayPort alternate mode) is driven by the Intel GPU, even in dedicated graphics mode. I am now curious if the QHD works the same way. My guess is it doesn't because I am fairly certain the QHD didn't have the Intel GPU in the control panel at all.

 

Sadly, my sneaking suspicion that they didn't even have the 1080s when they started taking orders appears to be true. I just spoke with customer service a few minutes ago. To be honest, no one truly knows the situation as I heard slightly different information then you did. I ordered my system on 11/21 so it was one of the first. The truth is, we all are bunched in together and they are telling everyone to "hang in there" and the orders will be expedited etc. However IF the 1080s come in on the 2nd, orders won't necessarily ship out that day. Usually they do a 24 hour system test I believe (unless they stopped). They also stress the GPUs and whatnot. I am being told I have a 4-9 day wait before it ships out and mine was ordered on 11/21/16 so I don't think orders shipping on 12/2/16 is reasonable. At least don't have your hopes completely set on that date.

It's pretty unprofessional to be advertising a product you don't have the item for. You can legally "presale" the item but you cannot sell an item you don't have. Finally, it begs the question how much R&D really went into testing the 1080 with the current chassis and cooling system. I guess I will be another guinea pig and hopefully I am going to be pleasantly surprised My AW 18 I'm typing on still plays most games at 1080p at high/ultra settings and has been rock solid. This was the first AW though that began more restrictive access and ability to overclock and personalize. The days of the alienware 18Rx2 and m17x r2 seem to be long gone and those were some FUN enthusiast gaming times. The forums aren't even the same. I miss seeing Brother Fox posts and all the great benchmarks and unique bios settings. Oh well...change is inevitable.

 

Do you guys know why I am getting this when I am trying to install the latest nvidia driver? Do we need a custom .inf file to install the official nvidia driver?

 

Yeah i already have expedited shipping so im assuming thats like 2 days. So if its not shipped out by the 4th (which gives them plenty of time to test) im planning on making a stink about it. I personally wouldnt be that aggravated that its delayed if they atleast told me from the get go or even sent out a email or something that its going to show up later. If i didnt message chat i would never even have an idea whats up. I really think they should have just put it as pre-order but honestly they probably wanted to just use black friday to push them out, which i understand but atleast tell the buyer you dont actually have them in stock instead of telling them a false date.

This is my first alienware laptop coming from a sagers/msi/asus and even with the issues i still feel like i got a pretty sweet deal from the price i paid (still cheaper then the rest i was looking at). I went and saw them at microcenter and feel like im making the right purchase. My main issue with all the other brands is the "cheap" feeling. Atleast the alienware feels like a $2000+ laptop. Even tho theres a bunch of threads about high temps, i kind of know what to expect. Aslong as my core temps are somewhat even from the start i will be happy. Ive repasted every laptop ive ever own, so im not afraid of digging in there and fixing it if i have too. While i shouldnt have to do that with a new laptop, im fine with it because once its done and the temps are under control i feel like this is the best pascal laptop out right now.

 

I was told something similar. Except they told me that my order was on hold for a part that they had NO ETA for. The rep suggested that I should cancel and reorder something else if I didn't want to wait as they wouldn't make the Dec 5 delivery date shown on my order.

 

I was able to download them im guessing you forgot to change windows 10 from 32bit to 64 bit in the drop down box

 

No, I downloaded the correct version, but the installation doesnt recognise the GPU.
I tried also to clean all files with DDU but still doing the same.
Do you select gtx10 series notebook or desktop?

 

Did you click the 10 series (notebooks) ?

 

I just tried both, notebook version and desktop version driver but still the same

Look at the screenshot what it says when I press the "Automatically find drivers for my NVIDIA products"