*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 Owner's Lounge

Just some pondering here, so feel free to pitch in.

By HDR they mean just dimming or brightening the entire screen. Unlike a screen with ability for sectional dimming; (TV/Display with Full Array backlighting (FALD) or an edge display that can dim columns, or OLEDs for pixel level) I don’t think HDR will be that useful with these current laptop panels. OLED as much I dislike it (for longevity/color shift) is probably the best for HDR as you can shut off individual pixels so you can really make out the contrast differences.

Additionally at HDR400 being not that much brighter than the current crop of laptop displays and these panels not labeled as supporting standard HDR10/DV I wonder if these are even 10 bit panels. Some older laptops already have dark content screen dimming (obviously not quite the same as this) which was quite annoying at times with certain content (ie dark scene with subtitles)

I feel at the moment it’s kinda a gimmicky at least with current laptops. Comically my 7577 with a 4K screen shows as HDR supported in Windows.

 

Hi there, was just wondering if the m15 has a mux switch for the graphics, and whether there are and BIOS options for other 'useful' things, such as for undervolting the cpu, setting memory timings and whatnot.

Another question i had, was about solutions for propping up the back to get better airflow. I was thinking either something like: 3d printed snap-on corner wedges. Or: a thin magnetized cut out sticker (assuming that the chassis is not itself magnetic). That is then cut out to a specific shape or pattern. And then permanmently suck onto the underside of the chassis (somewhere near the rear legs). Plus some little pieces with magnets in them. Which would automatically self-locate and attach to the intended position. With a strong enough force not to get knocked off so easily. I know it would be easier to just home-make a simpler solution, but what is the best all-around solution anybody has tried (so far)?

I feel this is an important accessory since propping up the rear, is necessary not to restrict the intake airflow / get better thermals.

 

I always just use two Coke bottle caps under each rubber foot on the back. Has to be Coke though not Pepsi.

 

AUO B156HAN08.0 (AUO80ED) Spyder5Elite Calibration Profile

 

How many years do you plan to keep your m15? There's this big myth about All OLEDs being plagued by burn-in. Saying that OLED has poor longevity based on some TV and smartphone examples (potentially from previous generation tech) is like saying that laptops aren't reliable because, well, there are some bad examples. Need to be more specific here, as we are talking about the AW/Dell OLED. So why don't we check out the AW 13 R3 thread for answers? Well, it appears that in 2.5+ years of its existence, with many thousands of people gaming/benching and generally abusing their machines around the clock, there's been maybe a single case of a burn-in report and even that is yet to be confirmed as irreversible. I have logged 2800 hours in Grim Dawn, 500 hours in CS GO, and about 800 hours in Minecraft on my 13 OLED in the past 2.5 years. That doesn't include all my IT related projects. I have only turned off my machine maybe 3-4 times. It normally keeps running 24/7/365. The only screen-friendly action I do is let it dim after 10-15 min of inactivity. That's it. No fancy programs to monitor pixels, no taskbar auto-hide , etc.
Oh and no burn-in. And if you don't believe me, ask anyone in the AW 13 R3 thread.

So, if the m15 OLED is using the same technology as our 13's - rest assured, you will abandon it as obsolete long before the OLED develops any color shifts or burn-in issues.

P.S.> Don't deprive yourself from having 3-5 years of thrilling experience with the best screen in the world to date, just because someone said it can develop an issue...

 

Most standard users infact probably won’t have issues or at the least won't be bad enough to be noticeable for a few years. However no OLED manufacturer will ever claim burn/color shift in won’t happen it’s just inherent to the technology and usage scenarios though it’s getting better and delayed with better management techniques. In-fact Samsung (if I recall is the one who made the AW13 OLED display) for example even mentions OLED burn in as a disadvantage compared to their "QLED" LCD TVs.

It depends on use and what static elements are there and brightness. The blue phosphor is still the major weakness having only a fraction of the half life of the red & green causing a gradual (its not sudden) color shift due to uneven wear between the 3 sub pixel colors which you acclimatize to (Unless comparing a new and old unit side by side) and in some cases even faster degradation in certain areas that’s more noticeable as “burn in”. If it’s mostly videos or short usage periods won’t make much difference. But there are some who heavily play certain games with HUDs that are constant or certain workflows with static elements. Not all workload or use cases are the same. I do use my laptops for 3-5 years before giving them away to family members.

Granted if you leave it on max brightness or with static/repeating content 24/7 like a Best Buy display unit which no one does you’ll probably see mild “burn in” in like 2-3 months or so like most of those phones and some of their LG and Sony TVs (uses LG OLEDs).

The LG displays are more resistant due to a patented white OLED with RGBW color filter over the top, not used in their OLED phones due to higher power draw with this method. The other way is having a blue phosphor that’s larger than the R/G elements combined which can compensate the degradation to a certain degree (ie AW13). In addition OLED devices also do other things like pixel shifting (which is suttle enough you won’t notice), but won’t help with large blocks of static content.

Just for comic relief and off topic, since LG has touted their patented white OLED displays for better longevity; one of two trade show events for them like that:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/lg-embarrasses-with-oled-burn-in-at-tradeshow/
Another at an airport (3 months old TV):
https://www.zdnet.com/article/lg-switches-airport-oled-to-lcd-amid-burn-in-row/

 

My AW13r3 OLED is 2.5 years old with zero burnin and zero issues. Its not my daily driver but it does get used on occasion.

 

yep I hope so I already disabled the warning for now since it is useless anyway and my M15 is stable during gaming. I have a weird issue though this is even before I upgraded the BIOS my screen is freezing sometimes when I left my M15 doing nothing.. I noticed that this mostly happens of steam is open anyone of you guys experienced that? The way to recover it is to press the power button so the unit will go on standby then when it open on standby it operates again normally.. techincally the unit never hangs when it happens it just that my screen is not updating since copying files still pushes thru

 

A lot of people just do not notice it because lack of attention but once you point it out they will see it forever. LG panels are less susceptible to color degradation but burn in remains the same. I see them burn in with my use cases within a year which always prevented me from investing in Oled for the long run.

I consider Oled as a midstop until non organic self emitting leds are the norm.

 

What is the dimensions of the 240 watt power brick?

Thanks

 

I can't really see inorganic LED displays replacing OLED - they require high temperature semiconductor manufacturing techniques that aren't suited to being done on large sheets of glass, consume more power and so require more cooling.

And there's also no incentive in a consumer market to produce a screen that will last 10+ years.

 

Approx 15cm by 7cm by 2cm. It is a big brick !!

 

It's tiny compared to the 330 watt brick I've had in every laptop since the past 5 years! Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

 

Still a manageable size.. But what is the weight?

 

So true. Given this is my first proper gaming laptop, the power brick is nearly as big and as heavy and the ultrabook i was replacing!!

Not that heavy, maybe 300g or a bit more, but certainly doesn't notice too much when carried with the laptop in a handheld / shoulder messenger bag

 

And again, like I mentioned earlier, you are probably talking about older OLED technologies, as well as OLED TVs and smartphones. You are missing out on a lot of great experiences. Even if my 13 R3 OLED develops a burn-in or color degradation in a year or two from now, that would be 3.5-4.5 years of a blast. By then, I would upgrade it to another machine anyway or just buy a new OLED panel for it and keep enjoying the best screen! And that's a big "IF" as there are no signs of burn-in or color changes present at all. In fact, I've searched across the web to find any videos of AW 13 OLED burn-in but there aren't any and only a single reported case of a burn-in, even though it's unclear whether the owner was able to reverse the damage. And that's a 2.5 years after the release date of a very popular gaming laptop. Based on my experience, I will buy another AW with OLED hands down. In fact, from now on it's a must for me. If you check my E485 thread, I recently upgraded it to a 100% sRGB, high contrast panel, but it pales in comparison to my OLED screen. The difference is so huge that I simply can't 'downgrade' at this point. I don't know how people can even consider a standard 1080p IPS panel nowadays. Granted I'd been spoiled by the HP's DreamColor long before joining the AW camp. Still, there's no going back to anything less than a 2k OLED for me. And yes, my samsung smartphone also has an OLED panel, and it's showing a color degradation after a year of use, but that's a whole another story and a different technology. Don't mix the two.

 

My unit with RTX 2060 with 144Hz panel had the same exact light bleed. It would show through in applications and while watching videos. Dell offered to replace the LCD but I was also having battery issues so I am getting a replacement and hope the Dell vendor lottery is good to me.

 

Are you sure? That's the smaller than my 180 watt psu I got.

 

I am talking about modern ones. TV's released only a year and a half ago. Also modern Samsung phones since the S6 up to the S9 (cant comment on the S10). All my Samsungs had severe burnin after just 8 months of use (max automatic brightness outdoors). I have friends with Oled TV's and you see gaming huds burned in after about a year of use.

De AW13 wasnt THAT populair (thats why it is also discontinued). But a lot of users just dont tend to notice it. Also in worst case scenarios on amoled smartphones.

The screens in the AW13 where just Samsung Oled as well, not that different from smartphones. No LG style oled.

 

so i am well aware of the science behind oled burn-in.

but i have a 2016 AW13R3 oled (6700hq version) that I am still using to this day. i work at home from my computer so my computer is usually operating 12-16 hours everyday, non-stop.

and let me tell you: there is no oled burn-in. idk how this is possible but i swear to all that is holy, there is no oled burn-in. honestly i can't quite believe it either.

i will be looking to upgrade my laptop next year when the 3000 gtx cards come out and by then, even if burn-in has developed, i will have been well-served by a laptop with a best-in-class screen for 4 years. i think it's safe to say, oled burn-in should not be a consideration.

 

I'm back in this thread. Ordered a M15 with OLED display and a 2070 Max Q gpu. Estimated shipping is May 1st so it'll be a while.

 

In for an OLED m15 with 2070 as well (red), coming April 25th-ish... My OLED 13 display was amazing and this was impossible to resist.

 

I just ordered the m15 Oled with 90watt 2060 and 256 single drive m2 with a April 30th date. Hopefully it does come sooner

 

Depends highly on how you use it and contents of your screen ofcourse. Switching to dark mode interfaces, auto hide the taskbar etc all help prologning the quality of each pixel on an oled panel.

 

Does anyone with an OLED screen actually calibrate it with a HW tool like an Xrite i1 pro is Spyder? That would give us some real data on how they age which subjective eyeballing can't...

 

Hmm so Support Assist just informed me that I 'urgently' need to update to BIOS 1.5.2 - apart from spurious power brick warnings are there any other gotchas?

 

Now with the 8950HK being offered on the Alienware m15 how do you think it will run in this small laptop

 

Is that with the back of the laptop rised? (ex. cooling pad, bottle caps, whatever to keep it rised from the desk) What's your room temperature?

Try also to have a trend with HW info for the temperatures, that might be the spike temps before the fans manage to bring the temperatures down.

On my 17 R4 for example it can reach 70 / 73 degrees °C while gaming as a spike, usually the temps stabilize aroud 60 - 65 once the fans and cooling system manage to control the temperatures

 

yes, U3 cooling pad and the room temp is 24C

 

The 8950HK is a lot of engine for the chassis... I've worked a lot with the 8950HK in the 17R5 and when OC'ed even that chassis had its hands full trying to tame the higher clocks. The benefit of the 8950HK will be that you'll be able to tune it way down and have the option to have higher clocks if you really needed it for maybe short renders/encoding etc... As for gaming, the chip won't really make a significant difference if at all compared to the current 8750H.

It'll be interesting to test it for sure... The 8950HK will surely need LM all around as well...

As for your screenshots, It looks like the thermal pads might be too thick and perhaps it's causing contact issues between the die(s) and heat sink.

 

Didn't HIDevolution do the thermals? Did they not test it?

What are your ambient temps?

Thermal Pads + LM + UV and still hitting 99C is a bit weird.

 

Ah good point. I forgot about that it was bought and upgraded from there... hmm yea that's strange... it shouldn't be hitting 99C especially with LM and Fujipoly.

 

Yes

 

ambient temp = 24C

 

Double post

 

It will be a disaster.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...iscussion-thread.827176/page-47#post-10890824

And with coming 9th gen Mobile this won't be any better...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ith-9th-gen-cpus-coming.828315/#post-10891349

+ this isn't exactly new news m15, temperature 100°C, thermal throttling

100C is fine for the Coffee-lake models.

 

From what I’ve read it seems Dell tweaked the CPU (Well in the bios in mean) to run at the high Turbo clocks longer than normal by setting a higher boost wattage limit. This would lead to the very high temps and according to Notebookcheck still maintains pretty good clock rates. Your clock rates seem pretty good. But yeah having temps close to 100C under constant load isn’t ideal for longevity. I personally would trade lower sustained boost clocks for a cooler unit as I tend to keep things for years and the performance impact even games wouldn’t be noticeable.

The I9 or higher clocked I7 8850 however aren’t worth it in a small chassis like this, literally just paying for the increased L2 cache (I9) with not much performance benefit if any relative to the cost as the thin chassis laptops are thermally limited as is.

I’m personally holding out for the Sunny Cove CPUs before my next purchase as they did promise increased IPC and architectural changes.

 

Nope happens to mine too now I've updated. I'm on 64% CPU fan, 58% GPU both doing nothing and sitting at 44C. Quiet, Cool and Balanced modes both behave like this.

User fan profiles dont seem to fix this either. Ugg.

 

Right....

 

I highly recommend this USB Type-C Hub which has 3 USB ports + Micro SD + SD Card slots!

USB C Hub, TOTU 8-In-1 Type C Hub with Ethernet Port, 4K USB C to HDMI, 2 USB 3.0 Ports, 1 USB 2.0 Port, SD/TF Card Reader, USB-C Power Delivery, Portable for Mac Pro and Other Type C Laptops (Silver)

 

What did you expect from this type chassis and cooling? Worlds best LM job and or with better thermal pads won't change the facts. It's what it is.
Laws of thermodynamics

You simply can't put in hotter and hotter hardware in a smaller and smaller box without follow up with bigger and better cooling. And when there is no more room left for the better cooling you are at the loss.

 

your bench are very welcome Ultra Male, i was on the edge of ordering an m15 with i9 with repaste from HID Evolution to replace my aging m18xr2 ( in signature )
I like the compact for factor, and the ability to have an oled screen, and possibly a way better battery life and use it also for casual use when travelling ...
but if there is no way to limit the throttling during gaming and not compromise its longevity, it's a big issue there ... or better take extended premium warranty

 

Don't let me benchmarks deter you from ordering it. It's a beautiful little machine, super thing yet very sturdy and keeps the Alienware DNA. The screen is amazing as well. I will probably get another one as there's nothing better out there right now other than the Area-51M which I'm not to keen about anymore.

 

well, the 99°C on the CPU is a bit frightening, but i also can't stand taking the maximum possible configuration, so, well i hope HID evolution repaste may work better on other laptops, or that it's possible to downclock maximum turbo frequencies and have proper ingame temps ...

the other drawback for me it sadly the oled screen only come in silver :/ and Azor gave me a very evasive answer on twitter : "#oledinred "
(i've had all my alienware since the m17x in nebula red ... i'm actually thinking about giving it to paint to a car paintshop in order to paint it in red with a good rendering)

i was also checking the Area 51m, but i'm fed up with huge gaming laptops after my M18x r2, and actually i think i'll better go with alienware graphic amplifier or another e-gpu box in order to boost the performances in a few years rather than changing the whole CPU and GPU ... and still keep a rig i can actually use easily for basic desktop tasks on the go

basically in my mind, it's like go with a 15" laptop, or go with the bigger 17", but not in between cause it's not worth it ( and the m17 seems actually too big to fit in most cases )

 

I don't like the QHD screen offered on the m17, not a very comfortable resolution for me to look at in a tiny screen and I don't like DPI scaling. The FHD variant is only 60hz that's why I went with the m15. I got the Graphics Amplifier as well for future proofing, it's sitting right next to me for the future for when I need to use it. Once you touch this laptop for the first time, you will fall in love with its beauty and design. Quality at its best!

 

I’ve been testing w/ CB R15- Once I get back to my office, I’ll get version 20 and post my results for you. FWIW- I received mine direct from Dell about 2 weeks ago. 8750H, 16ram(8x2), 2060, 500SSD, 90batt, 144 screen. I repasted on Monday w/ mastergel maker, still on stock pads, -100mV in TS, rear propped up on coasters about 1.5in. If I remember correctly, uv dropped temps by 8ish, and repaste was good for another 8.
How even are your core temps? I’m seeing about 8-10 degree diff between hottest and coldest cores at load (cores 0, 2 hottest)
BTW- thanks for posting that calibrated color profile for the screen. I used that yesterday.

 

These temps look bad. And that large difference between the cores - maybe heatsink has very uneven pressure?

Oh, and what is the power limit that your CPU hits in games and Cinebench? I wonder if this is the same issue as with Dell G5 and G7 which have a power limit that is way too high for the type of cooling system they have. Would not be surprising if Dell would release the BIOS that would lower it.

 

Yeah, the screen choices are the only things that bother me with the M17 as well. I would have preferred if it came with a 1080p 144HZ screen instead. But oh well, I have already placed my order... and the folks over at DELL told me that a 1080p high refresh screen is not planned for the M17, at least not in the near future.

I would have gone with the M15, but I have seen some 15.6 inch laptops in a couple of the local concept stores in my area and they felt a bit small, so 17 inches it is. xD I would try to make the most out of the 1440p panel, I really hope it is a good one.

 

One of the two m.2 slots supports SATA.

HTH

 

I think LM is a bad choice for this machine. Sounds like heatsink has uneven contact. Maybe IC Diamond will perform better. I am still surprised you got the HID treatment and it’s still hitting those temps. Doesn’t sound any better coming from Dell.

There’s a new product coming from Thermal Grizzly called Carbonaut. It’s performance should be between stock paste and IC Diamond but it should help with laptop HS. I am still waiting on Thermal Grizzly otherwise I would have applied to my Area-51m and done tests already on its performance.