*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

Not entirely sure what that hole is for either

 

This is new to me, and if this keeps happening, I'll ask the admins what's going on. I haven't been active much because of school and other priorities.
EDIT: Sorry, didn't finish reading. I thought the thread was deleted permanently.
Either the spam bot got to you or someone reported it. Who, I don't know. iUnlock can post his findings there. There shouldn't be a problem. There have been more damaging threads on AWA than this one.

 

yeah that was mine

 

plugging a non gsync screen into a gsync mb will not make the machine run on optimus/fn+f7

I tried

 

Hi @Brightowl3, i ordered this ssd heatsinks from ebay. They seem to me better than dell's. Up to 4mm thick.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Copper-Heat...986285?hash=item2823e648ad:g:QaIAAOSwj85YQB0M

You have the measures of the dell heat spreaders?

 

I have not received the heat spreaders yet... They will be delivered next week ^^

About the heat spreaders you have bought, I'm unsure if they actually will fit within the laptop :S But I hope you will succeed!!

 

@Brightowl3, before ordering it, i measured the space and fits perfectly. 1 mm left over.

Arm one with the same size using pieces of heatsinks 20x20x1mm, fits ok.

 

How bad is too bad?

Just got my AW 17 R4, 6700, 4k, 1070, ordered 28 November. Sure enough I seem to have both issues I was afraid of - lightbleed and high temps - and I don’t know if I want to keep it. Both issues are there, annoying, but not really bad. Do I have a defective unit? Would I get a better one if I returned it?

Lightbleed: Not visible in normal use with ambient light. A bit visible at start-up, more so in a dark room when looking at the desktop (see first screen on the attached picture). Kind of a Christmas tree in a dark room with lightbleedtest.com. Dell customer service says it’s normal and not a defect since almost not visible with ambient lights. Are they right?

Temps: Prime95 showed maximum of 84°, with core differentials around 10°. Fans working fine, stabilising temperatures after a few minutes in the high 60/70 range. Problem: Gaming (TW: Warhammer) got me 81° as well (4k @ ultra setting) and the while the laptop stayed cool on the outside the fan noise was really loud. Apart from repasting, which I can’t do myself, is there any hope of lowering the temps while gaming? Is my unit already as good as it gets or should the new units with fixed heatsinks be better?

The only other laptop I was really considerung before buying was the MSI GS73, but unless its heat management is fantastically better, I afraid of getting the same noise, just with higher temperatures. Might not have lightbleed though...

Thanks for any help. Need to decide before Christmas whether to keep it.

 

I have the same problem with lightbleed. I called to Dell support and next week they will change it.
You must to send a photo of the display in the dark. In the photo comes much worse. They can not refuse to change it.

 

I have the same problem with lightbleed. I called to Dell support and next week they will change it.
You must to send a photo of the display in the dark. In the photo comes much worse. They can not refuse to change it.

 

From what I see, you have absolutely unacceptable amount of bleed. As for temperatures without repasting, try undervolting your CPU, it helps a lot.

 

Thanks for caring about this and for haunting Dell about this.

I would imagine that anything built before these fixes are put into production will have to be sent back then and replaced in order to be fixed? Based on the reports on how well the butcher technicians from Dell seem to manage when doing repairs, I don't see this as something that could be fixed onsite, unless the entire MoBo is replaced?

Must admit that this sound quite promising based on all the problems reported here:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-P...K-Kaby-Lake-specifications-leak.187823.0.html

 

this might be in the wrong place .. but i need advice or suggestion from you guys

i ordered the AW 17 R4 through hidevoultion.com on nov 13 .. yesterday i got a reply that the order with dell never got placed due to the change in their system .. so basically i have been waiting for more than a month for nothing
the system i ordered was with a 3k screen and they said these pushed back like 30 days ( proabaly because the problem of the screen it self) so they are telling me go with full hd or 4k for faster times

now i am thinking to cancel after this treatment from both sides .. but i am hesitated to do that because i really like the system

any thoughts or comments can really be appreciated

 

Stable 42x for everything.

Semi Stable 43x for most things, but still needs some work.

Unstable 46x which is the highest clocked, but only pretty to look at. The laptop will stay on, but doing anything CPU intensive will make it throttle. With the right cooling and proper tuning maybe...just maybe...but the integrity onf the 6820HK's are nowhere near a desktop 6700K, which I had my 6700K running at 4.6GHz without breaking a sweat.

Everything in between needs some tuning, but haven't messed around with it much as I've been so busy with other things.

Stock 6820HK's should be able to run 40x out of the box on all four cores and if it can't, send it back lol...

41x across all cores should be easily doable. Again if it can't...well depending on if you need the speeds for CPU intensive tasks....that's a toss up.

 

AFAIK there is no AW14, do you perhaps mean the AW17 R4?

 

Hello aw owners. I have landed on the 4K AW17 R4 as the best choice of computer for my design/gaming needs. The allure of their claimed 100% color accuracy has me hooked for my job. (And in this forum somewhere the cookie monster user profile pic stated an aRGB rating of 99%. Since a print/branding designer... I am so hooked)

I've been read so damn much over the past few weeks. I really need to stop and get a straight answer of wether to buy this or not. I've litteely spend all day a few time a week reading absolutely everything online... And its making me go a little crazy. I'm pretty obsessive when I have to spend over $300 on anything and this is about to burn $2,400! I plan to buy this thing from Dell today but have some of the issues been addressed?

I read earlier in this forum that a replacement someone just got was perfectly fixed as far as temps go for the 6700 (which I'm getting).

I'm really afraid the 4K screen will have issues though, and I cant have any major issues due to my job in graphic design. An accurate screen is an absolute must. I'm also selling my old ROG (I would get a new ROG but Thier design sense has changed into full garbage mode and I cannot be caught dead with such a god-aweful design in my line of work.) so if there is an issue I'll be without a PC if I have to send it back for god knows how long which would spell disaster for the two companies I work/intern for.

 

yea it was a typo i fixed it XD

 

Thanks guys. Will try undervolting tonight. I did show pictures to Dell customer service, to their specifications (daylight with 50% / 100% screen brightness, then the same with room lights on). I sent them the pictures I attached here in addition (from a dark room, with 100% brightness). They said they looked at those as well, but what really counts is how visible lightbleed is with ambient lights on and on those my screen is fine, according to their specifications. Said they won't fix. But they did offer a refund.

I agree with them that it's much less visible with ambient lights on, but it's not invisible either. I effectively paid 1000 USD more for the 4k screen (because without 4k, I would only have bought a 1060, and maybe not an AW either), so I rather want to have a good screen. But not sure about alternatives to the AW (modern gaming laptop without being too thick) much less with 4k screen, so not sure that I want to refund.

 

Can we see all the pics here too? You mentioned it in your post but no pics attached :x

 

All respect to Iunlock & Co but am I the only one that is a bit worried by the fact that Dell themselves does not have this knowledge inhouse? As I understand it, we are not talking rocket science here but more mainstream engineering regarding how to design and implement cooling solutions etc.

 

Of course they were aware. The unknown in regards to Dell was the potential impact upon consumer confidence in the market. After evaluating that impact, they are better able to determine a course of action in terms of an overall cost/benefit analysis. It's not that they do not wish to produce the highest quality product possible at a given price point, but doing so can run a fine line when it comes to the manufacturing and QC process. When issues do arise, there exists no blank available to address them.

 

So you basically say that the knew about the problems but decided to just try to screw the customers and hoped the would get away with it? I hope you are wrong here but have to be honest and say that you might just be right here, based on previous experiences with Dell.

 

Dell (or any other large corporation for that matter) has little to gain by screwing their customers; they just want to come as closely as possible to doing so without crossing that line. Listening to their customers (which, by all accounts they are) allows them to gauge where a particular product falls along that spectrum. Where we actually benefit is in the company offering the highest amount of consumer value possible. "Fixing" the thermal problem then becomes a matter of what customers are willing to accept. If no one cared that 1.0.8 compromised performance, the company would consider it the best solution because funds would not "wasted" in the value chain.

 

Unfortunately I think you are right, and this is also an explanation for Dells mounting losses the last couple of years. Most other manufacturers would consider this many returns and field services to be totally unacceptable, if not for any other reason that it eats up the profits.

 

I just received my 17 R4 a few days ago and am actually surprised at the build quality for the price. I was also surprised that a package at this price included a one year on site service agreement given the associated costs. What it says to me is that while Dell is running a fine line in their manufacturing process in order to keep costs low, they seem committed to maintaining the brand equity they have built in the Alienware line.

 

Yes, and this is very strange. Normally a company would offer more generous warranties the better the quality of their products were. I had 3 visits from Dell technicians before my XPS 13 reached acceptable levels of quality. Any profit made on that sale must have been eaten up by those services. The third service was actually because their technician installed the wrong parts the second time, amazing.

 

It doesn't seem efficient to incur expensive warranty costs due to manufacturing defects, but for a company the size of Dell I have to assume they know exactly how that breaks down.

 

WTF guys, I was repasting my aw 17 r4 with 1080 gtx and it was missed by default 3 screws, one for hard disc and two on the top panel.

And can't completely disassembly it, the last screw on the gpu left bottom get stuck.

so.. can be it refurbished?

My system only have 1 week, time to refund.

 

Yes, they should after many years of losses in the past. Being private now it's a bit harder to know current financials in details. And probably way beyond the scope of the Alienware 17 R4 discussions anyway.

 

The Dell technician came today (Dec 16, 2016) and replaced my 1440p 120Hz GSync TN display on my 17R4 w/GTX1080 laptop that had the horizontal lines/banding issue. Unfortunately, the replacement display had the same exact issue! They even replaced the bezel. At least there's still no light bleed. Since I have the 4 year premium on-site warranty, I guess I'll have to just wait a bit until Dell sources a different panel.

AU Optronics [Unknown Model: AUO1096]
B173QTN[Dell P/N: WJGD4]
Date of Manufacture: Week: 0, Year: 2016
Monitor Hardware ID: Monitor\AUO1096

 

I agree with most of this discussion. Dell makes their money on the zillions of mainstream public and private systems they sell along with the warranties that accompany said systems. Most people would be so surprised at what is NOT seen or accounted for by a huge corporation. The bean counters have certain 'metrics' that need to be monitored and analyzed and if something doesn't trigger a certain metric life is good; whether or not something bad happened. In a past career and life, my MBA days studied Dell and other big corps. I would just say they have a stash of "It doesn't matter losses." Because they earn so much from other systems and warranties, it allows them to lose X amount without an RCA (root cause analysis) being flagged. AW absolutely loses a lot of money from all the technical visits to fix problems with people's AW systems but it doesn't matter as it's part of the acceptable loss that's inherent and sadly inevitable in most giant corps. AW, in my opinion, was bought by Dell to serve as a Halo for the Brand. Everyone needs a halo; whether it's profitable or not isn't always the focus.

 

Guys, with stock paste, what is the maximum safe OC that one can do on a AW 17 R4 6820HK. I referred to iunlock's thread for the 6820HK processor and made the following changes to my BIOS (was using OC level 3 before):

1-Core Ratio Limit Override: 40
1-Core Ratio Limit Override: 40
1-Core Ratio Limit Override: 40
1-Core Ratio Limit Override: 40

Core Extra Turbo Voltage: 0

Power Limit 1: 100000
Power Limit 2: 100000

I got the following Firestrike results:

Overall: 16,614
Graphics: 21,350
Physics: 12,591
Combined: 7,607

However, temps were 91, 90, 92, 87. Is this okay thermal performance for stock paste? Or do I have temperature problems even compared to other stock paste AW 17 units?

 

I agree that AW is probably mostly something to bring "bling" to a somewhat boring brand. Dells problem AFAIK is that they havent really made any money the last 10 years and doesnt seem to have done any root cause analysis. In Sweden Dells operations is sometimes so bad that it has become a public joke, like Dell.se is impossible to use even for those who wants to buy.

 

RE: "fixed heat sinks" ... pardon if I missed that bit in the thread but is Dell actually re designing the heat sinks on both the 6700HQ and 6820HK's ?? If so, could somebody comment on the details or reply with a link?

Thanks.

 

You gotta keep a few things in mind. When asking this question remember that all silicon is not created equally. There are honestly chips out there that could run really high multiples at 90*C for 6 years without fail and there are chips that will fail within a few weeks or even minutes. That's just something we truly cannot predict. One may have the BEST cooling and their OC'ed 4.5ghz CPU fails within 4 months despite having the best cooling and a typically stable CPU setting.

Given that this appears to be your first time overclocking and a bit of knowledge missing, I would ask yourself if you really NEED to have your computer OC'ed? Are you trying to be a bencher and go for really high numbers? Are you trying to max a game that isn't maxable? Really figure out your own goals/needs for having OC. If I had to take a guess, I would think you would best be suited as someone who is trying to find the best overclocking settings that could be used "if needed" from the 6820.

Finally, those are high temps for a 24/7 in MY opinion. I wouldn't run those. Personally, I wouldn't touch overclocking without repasting. Just my personal belief. If you can't repaste, don't OC. However, as I said, not all silicon is created equally so your system could be one that could handle that setting 24/7 for 7 years. Would I risk it? No way.

 

need repaste, anything higher that 88c is bad

no, heatsink is the same

 

From what they said in our 2 hour conference call. The fix is actually not a different heat sink at all.
They stated that contrary to popular belief, the 3 tension arm design was not the problem, that it was the thermal pads.
They stated that the thermal pads on the chokes above the CPU were too thick. This caused the tension arm on the top of the CPU to not put enough tension on the CPU, this causing uneven pressure.
They resolved this by using thinner thermal pads in the areas mentioned above.

 

From what they said on the conference call we had, they are currently working with AUO to get the panel lines issue resolved.
They mentioned that (while not confirmed from the appropriate department) they will most likely replace any affected LCD once they get a resolution from AUO.
Remember this is not a Dell issue but an issue that AUO has to resolve. This panel is used in other brands and all brands that have his panel also have the lines.
It may take some time but if it can be resolved it will be resolved as they are on the case.

 

Thanks Dave! You are correct that this is my first attempt at overclocking. The reason I OC'd is because Dell clearly claims that the AW 17 with 6820hk should be overclockable. I assumed that they would have safeguards in place to allow mainstream novice users to overclock (even 24/7 if they prefer). However, considering the temps I have, it seems like I should go back to stock clocks or opt for a repaste. Unfortunately, I do not have experience at all (and I don't want to risk doing it either). Is anyone here based in Boston who can help me repaste?

Btw, these are max temps that I reported. The average while gaming hover around 70-80C. When you say my temps are high, you mean the max temps right?

Hmm. Do you know anyone in Boston who may be able to help repaste? I do not want to risk doing it on my own (have no experience).

 

Have you tried the Dell OC Level 3? This would give you an OC less then what you were on but still more then stock. Sort of in between.
Technically if you look at the processor when you purchase from Alienware.com it says "Dynamically Overclocked up to 4.1GHz". This is referring to OC Level 3 in the BIOS.

Now that doesnt mean that the processor cannot do more. They clearly allow all of the multipliers to be adjusted as well as the power limits.
However it would seem with out repaste and other tweaks they only advertise Dynamically OC to 4.1GHz (OC Level 3) out of the box.
Which kind of makes sense. For one some silicon may have trouble getting to the same speed under the same voltage, which would obviously increase the temps beyond what the stock paste could handle.
This would make it nearly impossible to advertise any decent overclocks as there might be some that do not win the silicon lottery, which could lead to some complaints.
I do not see any company from a desktop or laptop actually state what their computer can overclock to out of the box with out any mods like repasting etc.

 

I am located in NYC, you can send the machine in (PM me for details).

 

Greetings all...here's another little video....enjoy...

 

Thank you sir ...

 

Removing the WiFi cables off of the WiFi card. (Alienware 17R4 / 15R3) - Killer 1535



Enjoy.

 

Breaking News - New Changes to the Alienware Gaming Laptops (Part 1)



Great stuff... Part 2 will be up within a few minutes.

Enjoy...

 

Breaking News - New Changes to the Alienware Gaming Laptops (Part 2)



Surprise surprise....

 

Really great news. Thanks for doing all this work (you and anyone that might have been involved also) and for putting pressure on Alienware. And Kudos to Dell for caring about this, just hoping they take good care of current owners as well.

 

Breaking News - New Changes to the Alienware Gaming Laptops (Part 3)

 

Oops