*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

I'll get mine Monday as well! Just one thing I'm dying to know most is the QHD display. Can Monday come any faster? .

 

Nope. It'll thoroughly clean the are even better so the tape will adhear more strongly. Just make sure to use the neutralizer/bottle #2 after using the 1st one. Actually it's probably the best overall way to clean and prep the die surfaces since if you let the 1st bottles liquid sit for about 10-30 sec, it'll break down the old compound more thoroughly than just using alcohol.

 

I've been using the Artic Cleaning solution for over a decade. It's still the best for repasting prep, hands down.

 

Yup! And it's relative low cost as an add-on item on Amazon makes it an easy choice to add to the cart. Also very easy to use solution.

 

Not only that, but it smells good too, lol.

 

Hmmm. Not as good as the industrial soap or fake banana...but yeah. Pretty damn good.

 

Anyone with a Samsung 960 Evo or Pro, is it recognised by Samsung Magician OK? Mine is not. Also, if I try to install the Samsung NVME driver, it fails, saying there is no NVME device.

Just wondering if this is an AW issue or Samsung issue.

Also, repasted with conductonaught. Fantastic - max temp dropped 19 degrees, and max core difference dropped down to 3 degrees.

Beware disconnecting the aerials from the killer wi fi card - twice now the terminals have pulled off the card. I am on my third card now. Never disconnecting it ever again....

 

The delay is due to this crazy BGA approach. You can order a rig with the i7 6820HK and there isn't a shipping delay. Since Alienware went BGA (have no idea why), the delay is due to the lack of boards they have at base. However, I was just quoted for a 10-15 business day turn around... they may know something we don't because the website currently says 23-27 days.

 

Info in the spoiler

Spoiler: Since Alienware went BGA (have no idea why)

 

Compelling argument and sounds like Intel is partially to blame.

 

I cannot wait to put Conductonaut on. (first laptop repaste) All I'm really after is that 4.1 GHz OC, and maybe a bit of GTX 1080 OC. Then I plan on leaving it alone and stable. Also, I purchased an Intel 8260 to replace the killer card because their software is soooo baaaaad in my experience.

 

Is it possible to switch killer for Intel WiFi ?

 

From a reseller like HIDEvolution, yes. From Dell's site, no. You can also buy one and install the card and driver yourself--the unit will accept it.

 

Yes you just buy an intel Wifi card that has input for 2 antennas and switch them. Make sure the card is in m.2 format.

 

The electrical tape must be taken off after application right? we do not leave it on.... dumb question sorry lol

 

No leave it on. Make sure you cut the tape down nice and neatly to cover the transistors. Leaving the tape on would also help to protect any spill over when you close the heatsink down.

 

Oh okay, this is the first time I see this done; but i will try it

 

Did you get your 17R4 with GTX 1080 today? Mine has not even shipped yet because I cancelled and reordered it to get a bigger SSD and max RAM at the same price.

 

Mine shipped today with next overnight shipping but it shows that it will arrive Monday due to the weekend I guess. So it looks like we will mostly all be getting our systems at similar time frames. I will download my usual suspects of games and benchmarks and monitoring software. I will then do some benchmarking to get a baseline and see what my temps are. If I get to the 90s or close to, I will begin my repaste and retest process.

I just read that reponse from AW to Mr Fox (who I wish was still around here) and I didn't think the response was sound or reasonable at all; just scriped lip service as to justify why they went to a super streamlined mainstream system with no upgrade path. With the current CPU that is inside our rigs being comparable to the CPU that was in my current rig of 2013, I highly doubt upgrading the GPU through the relatively weak external amplifier will net anything but a CPU limited system. i doubt by the time a GPU upgrade comes out that would be worth it to upgrade from our 1080, we wouldn't need a much more powerful CPU as well.

Regardless, I am excited to get the system and getting it properly cooled. I am interested in seeing what is causing these high temps.

 

Ye its been delivered. Waiting for me at home . I am at work ....sucks

 

About the Killer Wireless I am not 100% sure but I haven't had any disconnections since I updated the bluetooth drivers a couple of days ago:

http://www.killernetworking.com/driver-downloads/item/1525-1535-1435bt-w10

 

I've had drops yesterday under heavy load. I was downloading Watch Dogs 2 at around 16Mbs and it kept dropping. I stopped the Killer Software via Tasker and it stopped dropping. I actually went up to 24Mbs after I stopped the software. Under normal loads I've never had a problem.

 

There is a tuning setting in the systray application for Killer Software, set the Upload/Download speeds - that should stabilize it. Download the latest Killer Suite directly from Killer Networking.

Or, you can uninstall the Killer Suite and run on the Drivers only package under Other Downloads:
http://www.killernetworking.com/driver-downloads

 

Let's see some temps and benchmarks for AW 17 R4 1080GTX!!!!

 

Mine came in yeah!

Super nicely packaged. Really really well done to protect the equipment. Accessories are none. Just the Laptop and the power brick. Was hoping there was a mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter. Oh well.

Haven't even turned it on and I wanted a peak under the hood. It has the wide pipe setup from the pictures hosted a couple pages back. 256GB m.2 SSD is a Toshiba THNSN5256GPUK.

Wireless card....F*ck me. Been working on computers and component level tech for close to 20 years. Fricken pads ripped off the board when popping the ssmb connections. Normally you slightly wiggle the connector left right to make sure it's loose, then get a thin flat head under the connector to put pressure straight up. Well. It made the pop feel and noise. Now the ****ty wireless card is dead. Currently going at the cables with my SMC tweezers and magnifying headset to pull the crap out.

Intel 8260 here I come.

Haven't even powered it up yet lol...should have done that 1st.

 

As I posted earlier, happened to me twice. Moaned to Dell the first time and, to their credit, they couriered a replacement which arrived the next day.

 

Oh no! Wait, doesn't the 8260 require those two little cables? Or did they not get ripped out? Very possible I'm confused.

 

The cables are fine, but they pull the connection pins off the card. The card is then ruined, and it's a bit of a chew on to remove the remnants of the connector out of the cable.

 

Yikes. Removing the broken pins just so you can connect it to the new one--thats one fragile wifi card.

 

Cables are ok. Was able to clean the broken parts out of the ends and tested the connections on an old ass wireless card. So cabling is fine. Thank god for that. Those cables run up into the screen and may not be serviceable. So dodge a bullet there.

Glad to hear this seems to be a common issue. ****ty manufacturing design might contribute to the problems others have with the Killer cards. Pispoor soldering or lack of mounting materierial strength seems to be the underlying issue.

Computer is up and running, doing updates, installing malywarebytes and avast. Disabling windows 10 Pro-spying....once that's done I'll install some benchmarks and Aida64 to stress test. See what she's like stock.

 

Great.....fans are fairly noisy. Need to space the laptop off a flat surface to increase airflow. That's a stupid design. Went from overheating to not overheating just elevating the backend off the table.

So...Throttles and overheats out of the box just running a cinebench CPU benchmark. Fan speeds don't ramp up quick at all so the CPU just quickly reaches 98C. Once the fans come on...it's not as bad. I'll grab a 2nd shot of temps, but seems l have one that isn't too bad with temps. About a 15 deg seperation.



Need to mess around a bit and do a full suite of benchmarks, tests, stresstest and observations and then upload it here rather than a piece meal notes here and there.

So far....very WTF/MEH on the cooling. Fan speed is critical to this thing even being able to maintain it's self stock with NO overclocking and just stressing the CPU...curious what CPU and GPU loads are going to look like.

 

And what is the CB score?

As well try wPRIME v1.5 [ RUN IT AS ADMIN. Select 8 threads and bench 1024M]

 

Ah...hold on...it was 652 CPU and 88.91 GPU.

Something doesn't seem right at all with the GPU score. EDIT: reran. Desktop GTX 980 TI SLI is 152. GTX 1080 in the laptop is 105.99.

With Prime95...didn't it have issues like furmark where on Hasswell-E and newer, the AVX instructions caused the possibility of overheating just as is? As in not a valid was to test due to a bug in the Prime95 software? (haven't used that since Overclocking Q6600's and E6850 days.)

 

A fully working stock 6820hk should deliver about 710cb CPU(Tested and confirmed on 6700K with 6820 stock clock speed). @Diversion can confirm this.

 

Yeah....something isn't 100% as is. Checking around for setting to see if there's something I missed. CPU seems to settle at about 2.9-3GHz stock. Might need to jump into the BIOS and see what's what. There's a few funky things going on here. Was trying to find an updated Graphics driver and 376.09 will not work. CPU has some weird stuttering and throttling. Fan curve is just borked out of the box. There's as if not enough thermal headroom in the design and it saturates the setup FAST. Fans have to come onboard to bring temps to semi-normal if 85C is normal (nope.)

 

Do not forget Dell's advertised Dynamically Overclocked up to 4.1GHz. This is where you should start your tests. Not stock clock speed.

 

Hey guys. I also got my box delivered today. I ordered on Nov 22 (the 2nd day 1080 was available in USA). I complained to dell about the delays so I got my 2nd day upgraded to overnight. It got shipped from Nashville TN on Thursday at 1:17pm.

Here are some benchmarks I run (with g sync off all stock settings + software). Looks like the CPU temps issues is there. I plan to re-paste and adjust the 3rd tension arm as described in the other thread to get the temps under control. The GPU is running nice and cool, I have seen max of 68 C during benchmarks.

Early screen impression. The screen looks fine, probably needs calibration. I do not see any scan lines people are talking about from normal sitting distance. You start seeing them once you get close about 1-2 feet but only on solid colors and if you're actively looking for them. It is definitely not a big deal to me (I thought it would be worse).

The 512GB SSD that dell sends is some crappy no name drive. Can't find any info about it.

SK Hynix PC300 512GB NVMe

 

Dont feel bad, this isnt the first time this has happend with this exact card. It seems killer cards have wack solder.
Yes I would suggest a an 8260 as well. Way better card.

 

Cool. 8260 is shipped. Should get here Sunday. Everything else is working. For the most part. Temps are high so a repaste is needed for sure. Still running thru benchmarks and settings.

 

Use performance fan mode.

Where did you buy it from?

 

Will have to for now. Fans are pretty noisy at full blast. More like a muted server fan. Not a low Freq hum like a larger 140mm fan. Oh well.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0197W86IE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Shows shipping today and arriving Sunday for me. San Antonio area so it's probably in stock in Dallas.

 

So I finally decided to go with AW 17 R4 (1070, 6700HQ, 16GB, 128GB+1TB, FHD). It's been couple of days only, but man what pain a clean windows install gave me is just unbelievable. I was trying to install Win7, because I really hate win10, but I just couldn't, cos it seems like Win7 bootable from USB can only be run by USB 2.0 which this model doesn't have and there was so much hassle with UEFI, Safe Boot, GPT and other WTF stuff, that I have never heard of (last time I did clean install was 3 years ago). I wonder why everything becomes more complicated when it should be the reverse as the technologies advance and become more user-friendly.

Anyway, I somehow managed to do clean install but had to settle with Win10. So far, I could only run 3dmark 11 performance with no tweaking and no OC and my results are as follows:
3dMark 11 score: 14 731
Graphics score: 22 794
Physics score: 7 002
Combined score: 7376

The graphics score is quite awesome when I compare it to my clevo 170em with 7970M that has a score of ~6800 (more than tripled!). But I wonder why there is such a gap between general score and graphics score? I again compare it to clevo one, where the general score is actually slightly higher than graphics one?

 

CPU bottleneck on the overall score will always bring it down. Just go by the graphics score

 

UPDATE: ALIENWARE 17R4 (GTX 1080)

Hello all,

So what an evening...Wow... All I can say is wow... Stupid Dell almost gave us an heart attack.

@DeeX, @richiec77 and I spent the better half of the evening and into the wee hours (3-4am) of the morning messing with the new AW GTX 1080.

Here are the findings...(well we already knew this but just putting it out there.)

- Same heat sink as the 1070, but with three larger heat pipes. Good.

- However, it has the same single arm on the north side of the CPU plate. Not good.

- The uneven core temps due to the tri-retarded design on the CPU side of the heat sink still exist. Sad...

- However, I have a fix that will address this issue, separate but in conjunction to the arm mod.

---

At first we were getting power limited on PL2 being capped at 45w on the 6820HK. WTHeck right? Well after spending hours running through a bunch of things, we finally broke past the power limit and everything is fine now. Close call. I was about to scrap it and kick AW to the curb with a not so friendly letter, because we had initially thought that Dell went shady on the power to compensate for the 1080 and borked the power delivery.

Well we're glad that is not the case....The CPU power limit is unlocked and the GPU is looking nice at scratching 180W stock.

The issue now are the thermals as it is running hot on Dell's toilet paper.

Will be repasting later today and then running some benches.

Stay tuned for more....

 

Why didnt u get the 8265 its the newer version

 

Glad to hear there is hope! Can't wait to see ur solutions and findings. Will be following closely. Hopefully mine will ship in the next few days. Ordered on the 25th.


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Same here !
I read your teardown/repaste and it really helped me. I'm about to order a 17 with a 1080 and I'm a bit scared reading the threads on Reddit...

Keep up the great work !

 

lol,

Link?

 

Is it possible to use bigger letters? Even my grandmother could read this text, and without glasses, LOL

 

You have to comment on everything don't you.!!!

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