*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 Owner's Lounge

I'm running on an older version of the bios. When I get a bios that works I don't risk updating until I know all the issues. The bios that came out after mine messed up the fan curves so the fans would never idle so I decided not to update.

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Thanks, looks like a great paste tip, wasn't aware of phyoba nanogrease extreme and already bought Kryonout though, sigh.

 

That is odd at quiet mode on everyone else’s system puts it to 45W, Balanced is 60W and performance is 75W.

 

Kryonaut should suffice tbh. The biggest concern is uneven heat sink, if yours is flush then any paste will do the job.

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I'm impressed you've managed to test everyone else's systems I can just reliably tell you what's happening on mine.

 

So I finally got my M15 with the OLED option. All I can say is that the display is stunning! The colors, contrast and brightness are the best I've ever seen. There are zero defects.

 

It is so good to read that OLEDs are getting out finally. I hope for 120Hz+ within a few ... ehm. months LOL

 

Hi. I got an m15 with oled screen. I noticed when I launch games in full screen that the brightness dims down like it went down 3-4 levels. To fix the problem I press the brightness key down one and up one. When I exit the game windows goes down in resolution. Windows tells me that brightness is on max and again I have to lower brightness one and then raise it again. I figured issue was windows going bad. I tried clean install. Updating bios. Checking if there is auto dimming in battery settings to which there is none. Anyone else experience this?

 

Hello, everybody. Slowly I lose my patience with my Alienware M15. The alienware command center does not load the Fusion Tap. I reinstalled the AWCC several times without success. Do you have any tips besides contacting support?

 

AFAiR I saw this issue and another one: Alienware Update was hanging on startup. I used Dell Recovery Tool to create an OS Recovery USB stick and clean re-installed using the manual method (it's a cleaner approach than recovering to factory build, you will have to manually install most Dell software, you will lose the Alienware wallpaper lol). Smooth sailing ever since.

 

Contact Dell support via Dell Support Assistant - that way you won't waste time on the phone and you will have a nice record of their email response.

 

I have the same problem. Seems like a bug with the auto dimming.

 

@lukeg310

Try this:

• How to fix the brightness going back to 50% issue upon reboot in Windows 10 Redstone 5

 

I'll be interested in both the problems and dislikes as well as the positive impressions of the OLED screen, since I have a heavy debate at this time between a 17.3 4K or 15.6 OLED 4K.

 

What are your idle temps (assuming 22C ambient)?

 

The issue is present in RS6 as well. MSFT calls it Brightness based on usage wherein display brightness will be 100% or the %age you used previously even its running on battery mode. So, to get rid off that, you can use powerplan switcher like apps to reset the last used brightness settings when logged into windows.

 

Hello, I would like to ask you how thin should thermal pads be as for m15 with 2060 rtx. Thanks a lot for advice.

 

On 2070 there is a single 1.5mm strip over the CPU which looks too thick, and over the GPU there is a single 1.5mm strip + a whole bunch of 0.5mm ones. HTH

 

Thanks a lot, so if cpu pad 1,5mm was too thick, i should go for 1,0mm?

 

That should be reasonable. Do that, test contact with chips and potentially add another 0.5mm on top if unsure. The thick GPU pad def needs to be 1.5mm (or 1+0.5).

 

Its better not to stack pads. They lose efficiency quite quickly.

 

Have people got any long term success with RTX Max-Q undervolting / mem overclocking? I was getting around 7750 in TimeSpy (normally around 7150) with around 150mV shift plus small tweaks and 500Mhz memory OC, but something strange happened the next day: DLSS turned itself off in Tomb Raider resulting in a massive FPS drop. I thought I fried the GPU so turned that stuff off.

This was a second incident actually. Previously, frame rates in all games (first noticed in VR) would drop significantly. Restoring baseline settings didn't help, had to clean install the driver. Vanilla GPU driver settings are rock solid.

My preliminary conclusion so far is that 2070 Max-Q UV / mem OC is risky at best, although will try again with gentler settings.

 

This laptop is strange. When I benchmark the 2070-max-q it boosts to about 1400mhz but when I play games like The Division 2 I see the GPU boosting to 1740mhz and staying there for the majority of my play time. BTW I have that game set to ultra @ 1080p and it's a rock solid 60fps (I cap the fps to 60).

 

Well, it's working constantly at 90W under load. I guess the clock depends on how many threads/pipelines are in use at the time - the more parallel work in progress, the lower the clock just like with CPU boosting.

 

Guys, can you advise me what are dimensions of M.2 if i want to buy and install them by myself as for m15? Its classic 22x80 mm? Do I need to buy also heat dis. for it? Thank you

 

2x 2280. You don't really have to buy a heatsink, but if you want to have one good luck finding an aftermarket one that fits, need to order it from Dell.

 

I had an 'ah ha" moment. Well maybe. I don't know if anyone is able to drop a line to Frank Azor but IF (and it's pretty probable given that they offered the 8950HK) they offer the 9880H 8 core mobile in the June refresh, they should offer a BIOS option to disable hyperthreading similar to the 9900K in the 51m. Why? Well for some folks, they may well wish for the 8 core CPU but might want to limit the heat it will produce. This would give them an "in between" option, so that they don't have to choose only between the 6/12 cores and the 8/16 cores but have something like a mobile version of the 9700 where they limit the heat but keep some of the speed and the usefulness of 8 real cores.

I have zero idea if this is possible but I'm pretty sure it should be. And there are power users who balance the need for speed with the need to keep the heat in check. It would be an easy win with a simple solution.

 

Heat? What heat?

 

So what you are saying nobody managed to get this double covering heatsink from dell till now? I saw some Alexo_rex guy elsewhere saying that this heatsink cost 9.99dollars, so I guess it could be available somewhere.

 

Damn, wish I could see that OLED in person on the m15 and compare to 13 R3.

BTW finally reviewed the m15 lol:

Spoiler

 

I'm saying I couldn't find anything that works online. Proper heatsinks don't fit comfortably. I found one such slim heatsink held by silicone rings which fits but the silicone rings touch the chasis so didn't want to risk flexing the drive or the PCB underneath. I will attempt to order the simple heatsink from Dell soon, part numbers in this thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/a5om3d/m15_m2_heatsink/

Unfortunately, as the following thread indicates, ordering can be problematic:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/m15-M-2-heat-shield-order/td-p/7261271

Failing that I guess I will put in the work and file down the 3rd party heatsinks to a more comfortable height, although in that case the silicone rings won't be providing as much pressure.

It's not a super pressing matter, but my EVO 970 Plus does heat up to over 90C under load so would be good to sort this out.

 

Thanks for posting the review, not bad. The 90W battery is def the way to go, especially given that large SSD drives have become affordable, even then the battery life is worse than on my old AW 15R2.

Your Shadow of the Tomb Raider FPS is very low. On 2070 I'm getting 68FPS in 1980x1080 on MAX settings (MAX > Ultra), and 28 FPS in 4K - the trick is to enable DLSS.

The reported temps are very high. This laptop needs to be put on a good cooling pad which should bring temps under load down by 8C, and ideally repasted.

 

BTW Don't ping Azor about this. The option to disable HT is there already, so presumably they will keep that fairly standard feature in the refresh.

 

I forgot to mention everything was done on auto fans on balanced profile with latest bios.

Yeah SOTTR is low, wonder if this could also be because of the 180w PSU instead of 240w?

I don't know if DLSS will increase from 26 to 50+ at 1080p though.

 

I've ordered the double heat spreader for the m.2 drives from Dell. It took a couple of reps, but I was able to buy it eventually.

 

Awesome, mate can you advise us who should I ask about this or how you managed to persuade them to sell it?

 

Oh fyi my 970 evo in my desktop was running at 102c until I put a heatsink on it with thermal tape on both sides. Unfortunately that specific m2 runs super hot for some reason. I called Samsung and they are aware of the issue. Everything else in my desktop doesn’t get above 68c

 

Taping the heatsink down instead of using the silicone rings (they are 1mm thick) is a great idea. Do you mind advising which heatsink and thermal tape have you used?

I would put 0.5mm thermal pad at the bottom. Top surface is uneven so would try 0.5mm on the elevated chip s + 1mm on the chips below, and tape the heatsink on both ends. Sounds like a better plan than trying to wrestle the simple spreader out of Dell.

 

Balanced mode, 1.5.2 BIOS (and 2070) here.
So with SOTTR I noticed that performance plummets (to 5 FPS) on the built-in display when full-screen exclusive mode is selected - imagine some Optimus glitch. DLSS seems to be more of a benefit in 4k. In FHD it only significantly beats the highest antialiasing setting SMAAx4 (55 FPS) with 81 FPS on the DLSS in DX12 mode, again everything else is maxed out. I doubt the 180W PSU is an issue, particularly if the CPU is undervolted, in which case it will take maybe 25W, while the GPU will draw 80-90W (IDK what wattage the 2060 uses), so should be OK, and any temporary surges would be covered by the battery.

I think the suggestion that games should be played on this laptop (and the built-in display) on medium settings is frankly ridiculous. Almost everything is playable on absolutely maxed out settings in 4k on the 2070. On the 2060 one might need to dial things down a little in 4K, particularly texture resolution due to the smaller VRAM, but I doubt it would need to go down to medium.

 

I found this thermal tape: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermal-Adhesive-Conductive-Cooling-Chipset/dp/B07238XV2X/
1.5W/K*m is not amazing though. Any other ideas?

BTW this is the heatsink I've been trying to use: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07K9MF25F/
Unfortunately 3mm is too high with the silicons rings on top, will prob need to file it down to 2mm for a comfortable fit, even if taped down rather than secured using the rings.

 

Got it, thanks!

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B074Y5DZ4N/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_track_package_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Sorry just got back from Canada. I use this in my desktop. It definitely wouldn’t fit in a pc which is what you’re looking for. I’d try something small that has thermal tape on both sides. It ran 10c warmer without the tape on both sides. I wish I had a better recommendation for you

 

2.5mm heatsin, very nice. I'm assuming you meant "that has thermal pads on both sides"? Anyway, if I can't find that model I will just use the 3mm heatsink: file it down and secure using thermoconductive tape. I will put thermal pads on both sides.

 

Another backup solution: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173861075697

 

The part # for the dual m.2 SSD heat spreader is R46DX. They refer to it as an SSD Thermal pad. I kept getting bounced between sales and warranty. They wouldn't send me the part for free, as my system only came configured with one m.2 SSD, so I had to pay $10 for the sales department to send it to me.

 

No suggestion was for SOTTR not other games.

All other games ran fine. Maybe it was the full screen mode bug. I don't have the laptop with me to retest but just goes to show how a single setting in a game can affect performance.

Division 2 got 80fps 1080p high preset, OW epic got 147fps so it can definitely game at 1080p at native refresh rate.

I wouldn't say 4K, unless we're talking games like OW, Apex Legends, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike. My 2080 struggles at 4K maxed out.

Kinda wish I had more time with the laptop, I knew that 26fps didn't feel right.

 

IMHO Just goes to show that some games can exhibit bugs with newer hardware. I don't actually have the full SOTTR, just the demo - maybe that was just a demo issue.

Pretty much everything I've tried runs fine in 4k including SOTTR, ROTTR, XCOM2, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, Quake Champions, OW, Fortnite, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (struggles a bit),, of course older games like CSGO which were already playable in 4k on my old 980M Judging by the benchmarks, there isn't that much actual performance difference between 2070 max-q and 2080 max-q, unless you are comparing to the desktop chip lol

 

Well, there shouldnt be big difference even between 2060 and 2070MQ laptop versions. Maybe about 10% so in the end all 3 cards are quite close to each other.

 

Possibly. What's the power limit on the 2060 in the m15? Also 90W? The main issue with 2060 is less VRAM, the 6GB limit is getting pushed and breached quite a bit on max settings.

 

Should be 90W as well for 2060. 6gb is limiting true but not so much plus there is benefit of dlss and RTRT.